LIBRARY^ 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO       , 


Carleton  H.  Parker 


SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NBW  YORK   .    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO 
DALLAS   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •   BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

A  SURVEY  OF  THE  WORLD-WIDE 
REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT 


Nefo  If  crfc 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1912 

All  rightt  reserved 


COPTMGHT,  1912, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  191*. 


Norfcootr 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


ERRATA 

Preface,  page  V,  6th  line  from  bottom :     for  or  read  of. 
Introduction,  page  X,  20th  line:     for  either  read  neither. 


COPTSIOHT,  1912, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  191*. 


Norton  ots 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Oo. 
Norwood,  MMS.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

THE  only  Socialism  of  interest  to  practical  persons  is  the 
Socialism  of  the  organized  Socialist  movement.  Yet  the  public 
cannot  be  expected  to  believe  what  an  organization  says  about 
its  own  character  or  aims.  It  is  to  be  rightly  understood  only 
through  its  acts.  Fortunately  the  Socialists'  acts  are  articu- 
late ;  every  party  decision  of  practical  importance  has  been 
reached  after  long  and  earnest  discussion  in  party  congresses 
and  press.  And  wherever  the  party's  position  has  become 
of  practical  import  to  those  outside  the  movement,  it  has  been 
subjected  to  a  destructive  criticism  that  has  forced  Socialists 
from  explanations  that  were  sometimes  imaginary  or  theoreti- 
cal to  a  clear  recognition  and  frank  statement  of  their  true 
position.  To  know  and  understand  Socialism  as  it  is,  we  must 
lay  aside  both  the  claims  of  Socialists  and  the  attacks  of  their 
opponents  and  confine  ourselves  to  the  concrete  activities  of 
Socialist  organizations,  the  grounds  on  which  their  decisions 
have  been  reached,  and  the  reasons  by  which  they  are  ulti- 
mately defended. 

Writers  on  Socialism,  as  a  rule,  have  either  left  their  state- 
ments of  the  Socialist  position  unsupported,  or  have  based  them 
exclusively  on  Socialist  authorities,  Marx,  Engels,  and  Lasalle, 
whose  chief  writings  are  now  half  a  century  old.  The  exist- 
ence to-day  of  a  well-developed  movement,  many-sided  and 
world-wide,  makes  it  possible  for  a  writer  to  rely  neither 
on  his  personal  experience  and  opinion  nor  on  the  old  and 
familiar,  if  still  little  understood,  theories.  I  have  based  my 
account  either  on  the  acts  of  Socialist  organizations  and  of 
parties  and  governments  with  which  they  are  in  conflict, 
or  on  those  responsible  declarations  or  representative  states- 
men, economists,  writers,  and  editors  which  are  not  mere 
theories,  but  the  actual  material  of  present-day  polities,  — 
though  among  these  living  forces,  it  must  be  said,  are  to  be 
found  also  some  of  the  teachings  of  the  great  Socialists  of  the 
past. 


Vi  PREFACE 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  numerous  quotations  from  So- 
cialists and  others  are  not  given  academically,  in  support  of 
the  writer's  conclusions,  but  with  the  purpose  of  reproducing 
with  the  greatest  possible  accuracy  the  exact  views  of  the 
writer  or  speaker  quoted.  I  am  aware  that  accuracy  is  not 
to  be  secured  by  quotation  alone,  but  depends  also  on  the 
choice  of  the  passages  to  be  reproduced  and  the  use  made 
of  them.  I  have  therefore  striven  conscientiously  to  give, 
as  far  as  space  allows,  the  leading  and  central  ideas  of  the 
persons  most  frequently  quoted,  and  not  their  more  hasty, 
extreme,  and  less  representative  expressions. 

I  have  given  approximately  equal  attention  to  the  German, 
British,  and  American  situations,  considerable  but  somewhat 
less  space  to  those  of  France  and  Australia,  and  only  a  few 
pages  to  Italy  and  Belgium.  This  allotment  of  space  corre- 
sponds somewhat  roughly  to  the  relative  importance  of  these 
countries  in  the  international  movement.  As  my  idea  has 
been  not  to  describe,  but  to  interpret,  I  have  laid  addi- 
tional weight  on  the  first  five  countries  named,  on  the  ground 
that  each  has  developed  a  distinct  type  of  labor  movement. 
As  I  am  concerned  with  national  parties  and  labor  organiza- 
tions only  as  parts  of  the  international  movement,  however,  I 
have  avoided,  wherever  possible,  all  separate  treatment  and  all 
discussion  of  features  that  are  to  be  found  only  in  one  country. 

The  book  is  divided  into  three  parts ;  the  first  deals  with 
the  external  environment  out  of  which  Socialism  is  growing 
and  by  which  it  is  being  shaped,  the  second  with  the  internal 
struggles  by  which  it  is  shaping  and  defining  itself,  the  third 
with  the  reaction  of  the  movement  on  its  environment.  I 
first  differentiate  Socialism  from  other  movements  that  seem 
to  resemble  it  either  in  their  phrases  or  their  programs  of 
reform,  then  give  an  account  of  the  movement  from  within, 
without  attempting  to  show  unity  where  it  does  not  exist, 
or  disguising  the  fact  that  some  of  its  factions  are  essentially 
anti-Socialist  rather  than  Socialist,  and  finally,  show  how  all 
distinctively  Socialist  activities  lead  directly  to  a  revolutionary 
outcome. 

I  am  indebted  to  numerous  persons,  Socialists  and  anti- 
Socialists,  who  during  the  twelve  years  in  which  I  have  been 
gathering  material  —  in  nearly  all  the  countries  mentioned  — 
have  assisted  me  in  my  work.  But  I  must  make  special  men- 
tion of  the  very  careful  reading  of  the  whole  manuscript  by 
Mr.  J.  G.  Phelps  Stokes,  and  of  the  numerous  and  vital  changes 
made  at  his  suggestion. 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE    v 

INTRODUCTION iz 

PART  I 
"STATE  SOCIALISM"  AND  AFTER 

CHAPTKB 

I.     THE  CAPITALIST  REFORM  PROGRAM      .....  1 

II.     THE  NEW  CAPITALISM 16 

III.  THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM      ....  32 

IV.  "STATE  SOCIALISM"  AND  LABOR                  .        .        .        .46 
V.     COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION    .......  66 

VL     AGRARIAN  "STATE  SOCIALISM"  IN  AUSTRALASIA        .        .  86 

VII.     "EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY" 97 

VIII.    THE  "FIRST  STEP"  TOWARDS  SOCIALISM     .        .        .        .108 

PART   II 
THE  POLITICS  OF  SOCIALISM 

I.     "STATE  SOCIALISM"  WITHIN  THE  MOVEMENT      .        .        .  117 

II.     "REFORMISM"  IN  FRANCE,  ITALY,  AND  BELGIUM       .        .  131 

III.  "LABORISM"  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 146 

IV.  "REFORMISM"  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       ....  176 
V.     REFORM  BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION 210 

VI.     REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS 231 

VII.     THE  REVOLUTIONARY  TREND 248 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

PART  III 
SOCIALISM  IN  ACTION 

I.     SOCIALISM  AND  THE  "CLASS  STRUGGLE"     ....  276 

II.     THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  AND  THE  LAND  QUESTION      .  300 

III.  SOCIALISM  AND  THE  "WORKING  CLASS"     ....  324 

IV.  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR  UNIONS      ......  334 

V.     SYNDICALISM  ;    SOCIALISM    THROUGH    DIRECT   ACTION    OF 

LABOR  UNIONS        ........  354 

VI.     THE  "GENERAL  STRIKE" 387 

VII.     REVOLUTION  IN  DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT        .         .  401 

VIII.     POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION 416 

IX.     THE  TRANSITION  TO  SOCIALISM             426 


437 
447 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  only  possible  definition  of  Socialism  is  the  Socialist 
movement.  Karl  Marx  wrote  in  1875  at  the  time  of  the  Gotha 
Convention,  where  the  present  German  party  was  founded, 
that  "every  step  of  the  real  movement  is  of  more  importance 
than  a  dozen  programs,"  while  Wilhelm  Liebknecht  said, 
"Marx  is  dear  to  me,  but  the  party  is  dearer."  (1)  What 
was  this  movement  that  the  great  theorist  put  above  theory 
and  his  leading  disciple  valued  above  his  master  ? 

What  Marx  and  Liebknecht  had  in  mind  was  a  social  class 
which  they  saw  springing  up  all  over  the  world  with  common 
characteristics  and  common  problems  —  a  class  which  they 
felt  must  and  would  be  organized  into  a  movement  to  gain 
control  of  society.  Fifty  years  before  it  had  been  nothing, 
and  they  had  seen  it  in  their  lifetime  coming  to  preponderate 
numerically  in  Great  Britain  as  it  was  sure  to  preponderate 
in  other  countries ;  and  it  seemed  only  a  question  of  time 
before  the  practically  propertyless  employees  of  modern  in- 
dustry would  dominate  the  world  and  build  up  a  new  society. 
This  class  would  be  politically  and  economically  organized, 
and  when  its  organization  and  numbers  were  sufficient  it 
would  take  governments  out  of  the  hands  of  the  old  aristo- 
cratic and  plutocratic  rulers  and  transform  them  into  the 
instruments  of  a  new  civilization.  This  is  what  Marx  and 
Liebknecht  meant  by  the  "  party  "  and  the  "  movement." 

From  the  first  the  new  class  had  been  in  conflict  with  em- 
ployers and  governments,  and  these  struggles  had  been  steadily 
growing  in  scope  and  intensity.  Marx  was  not  so  much  inter- 
ested in  the  immediate  objects  of  such  conflicts  as  in  the 
struggle  itself.  "The  real  fruit  of  their  victory,"  he  said, 
"  lies,  not  in  immediate  results,  but  in  the  ever  expanding  union 
of  the  workers."  (2)  As  the  struggle  evolved  and  became 
better  organized,  it  tended  more  and  more  definitely  and  irre- 
sistibly towards  a  certain  goal,  whether  the  workers  were  yet 
aware  of  it  or  not.  If,  therefore,  we  Socialists  participate  in 

ix 


X  INTRODUCTION 

the  real  struggles  of  politics,  Marx  said  of  himself  and  his 
associates  (in  1844,  at  the  very  outset  of  his  career),  "we 
expose  new  principles  to  the  world  out  of  the  principles  of  the 
world  itself.  .  .  .  We  only  explain  to  it  the  real  object  for 
which  it  struggles."  (3) 

But  the  public  still  fails,  in  spite  of  the  phenomenal  and 
continued  growth  of  the  Socialist  movement  in  all  modern 
countries,  to  grasp  the  first  principle  on  which  it  is  based. 

"  Socialism  has  many  phases,"  says  a  typical  editorial  in  the 
Independent.  "  It  is  a  political  party,  an  economic  creed,  a  reli- 
gion, and  a  stage  of  history.  It  is  world-wide,  vigorous,  and 
growing.  No  man  can  tell  what  its  future  will  be.  Its  philos- 
ophy is  being  studied  by  the  greatest  minds  of  the  world,  and 
it  deserves  study  because  it  promises  a  better,  a  safer,  and  a 
fairer  life  to  the  masses.  But  as  yet  it  is  only  a  theory,  a 
hypothesis.  It  has  never  been  tried  in  toto.  ...  It  has  suc- 
ceeded only  where  it  has  allied  itself  with  liberal  and  oppor- 
tunist rather  than  radical  policies."  (4) 

As  the  Socialist  movement  has  nowhere  achieved  political 
power,  obviously  it  can  either  claim  political  success  or  be 
accused  of  political  failure.  Nor  does  this  fact  leave  Socialism 
as  a  mere  theory,  in  view  of  its  admitted  and  highly  significant 
success  in  organizing  and  educating  the  masses  in  many  coun- 
tries and  animating  them  with  the  purpose  of  controlling  in- 
dustry and  government. 

Mr.  John  Graham  Brooks,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  gives  us 
another  equally  typical  variation  of  the  same  fundamental 
misunderstanding.  "  Never  a  theory  of  social  reconstruction 
was  spun  in  the  gray  mists  of  the  mind,"  says  Mr.  Brooks, 
"that  was  not  profoundly  modified  when  applied  to  life. 
Socialism  as  a  theory  is  already  touching  life  at  a  hundred 
points,  and  among  many  peoples  —  Socialism  has  been  a  faith. 
It  is  slowly  becoming  scientific,  in  a  sense  and  to  the  extent 
that  it  submits  its  claims  to  the  comparative  tests  of  experi- 
ence." (5) 

Undoubtedly  Socialist  theories  have  been  spun  both  within 
and  without  the  movement,  and  to  many  Socialism  has  been 
a  faith.  But  neither  faith  nor  theory  has  had  much  to  do 
with  the  great  reality  that  is  now  overshadowing  all  others 
in  the  public  mind ;  namely,  the  existence  of  a  Socialist  move- 
ment. The  Socialism  of  this  movement  has  never  consisted 
in  ready-made  formulas  which  were  later  subjected  to  "the 
comparative  test  of  experience " ;  it  has  always  grown  out 
of  the  experience  of  the  movement  in  the  first  instance. 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

Another  typical  article,  in  Collier's  Weekly,  admits  that 
Socialism  is  now  a  movement.  But  as  the  writer,  like  so  many 
others,  conceives  of  Socialism  as  having  been,  in  its  inception, 
a  "theory,"  a  "doctrine"  promoted  by  "Utopian  dreaming," 
"  incendiary  rhetoric,"  an  "  anti-civic  jargon,"  he  naturally 
views  it  with  little  real  sympathy  and  understanding  even 
in  its  present  form.  The  same  Socialism  that  was  accused 
of  all  this  narrowness  is  suddenly  and  completely  transformed 
into  a  movement  of  such  breadth  that  it  has  neither  a  new 
message  nor  even  a  separate  existence. 

"It  is  merely  a  new  offshoot  of  a  very  old  faith  indeed,"  we 
are  now  told,  "  the  ideal  of  the  altruistic  dreamers  of  all  ages, 
an  awakened  sense  of  brotherhood  in  men.  Stripped  of  all 
its  husks,  Socialism  stands  for  no  other  aim  than  that.  All 
its  other  teachings,  the  public  ownership  of  the  land,  for 
example,  the  nationalization  of  the  means  of  production  and 
distribution,  the  economic  emancipation  of  woman,  have  only 
program  values,  as  they  lead  to  that  one  end.  Whether,  so 
stripped,  it  ceases  to  be  Socialism  and  becomes  merely  the 
advance  guard  of  the  world-wide  liberal  movement  is  not,  of 
course,  a  question  of  more  than  academic  interest."  (6) 

The  moment  it  can  no  longer  be  denied  that  Socialism  is 
a  movement,  it  is  at  once  confused  with  other  movements  to 
which  it  is  fundamentally  and  irreconcilably  opposed.  Surely 
this  is  no  mere  mental  error,  but  a  deep-seated  and  irrepres- 
sible aversion  to  what  is  to  many  a  disagreeable  truth,  —  the 
rapid  growth  and  development,  in  many  countries,  of  political 
parties  and  labor  organizations  more  and  more  seriously  de- 
termined to  annihilate  the  power  of  private  property  over 
industry  and  government. 

The  radical  misconceptions  above  quoted,  almost  universal 
where  Socialism  is  still  young,  are  by  no  means  confined  to 
non-Socialists.  Many  writers  who  are  supposed,  in  some 
degree  at  least,  to  voice  the  movement,  are  as  guilty  as  those 
who  wholly  repudiate  it.  "Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  for  instance, 
says  that  Socialism  is  a  "  system  of  ideas,"  and  that  "  Social- 
ism and  the  Socialist  movement  are  two  different  things."  (7) 
If  Socialism  is  indeed  no  more  than  a  "growing  realization 
of  constructive  needs  in  every  man's  mind,"  and  if  every  man 
is  more  or  less  a  Socialist,  then  there  is  certainly  no  need  for 
that  antagonism  to  employers  and  property  owners  of  which 
Mr.  Wells  complains. 

Mr.  Wells  himself  gives  the  true  Socialist  standpoint  when 
he  goes  on  to  write  that  political  parties  must  be  held  together 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

"  by  interests  and  habits,  not  ideas."  "  Every  party,"  he  con- 
tinues, "  stands  essentially  for  the  interests  and  mental  usages 
of  some  definite  class  or  group  of  classes  in  the  existing  com- 
munity. .  .  .  No  class  will  abolish  itself,  materially  alter  its 
way  or  life,  or  drastically  reconstruct  itself,  albeit  no  class 
is  indisposed  to  cooperate  in  the  unlimited  socialization  of  any 
other  class.  In  that  capacity  of  aggression  upon  the  other 
classes  lies  the  essential  driving  force  of  modern  affairs."  (8) 

The  habits  and  interests  of  a  large  and  growing  part  of  the 
population  in  every  modern  country  are  developing  a  capacity 
for  effective  aggression  against  the  class  which  controls  in- 
dustry and  government.  As  this  class  will  not  socialize  or 
abolish  itself,  the  rest  of  the  people,  Socialists  predict,  will 
undertake  the  task.  And  the  abolition  of  capitalism,  they 
believe,  will  be  a  social  revolution  the  like  of  which  mankind 
has  hitherto  neither  known  nor  been  able  to  imagine. 


SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 


PART   I 

''STATE    SOCIALISM"    AND    AFTER 

\ 

CHAPTER  I 
THE   CAPITALIST  REFORM  PROGRAM 

ONLY  that  statesman,  writer,  or  sociologist  has  the  hearing 
of  the  public  to-day  who  can  bind  all  his  proposed  reforms 
together  into  some  large  and  far-sighted  plan. 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  this  new  spirit,  has  spoken  of  the  "  social 
reorganization  of  the  United  States,"  while  an  article  in  one 
of  the  first  numbers  of  La  Follette's  Weekly  protested  against 
any  program  of  reform  "  which  fails  to  deal  with  society  as 
a  whole,  which  proposes  to  remedy  certain  abuses  but  ad- 
mits its  incapacity  to  reach  and  remove  the  roots  of  the 
other  perhaps  more  glaring  social  disorders." 

Some  of  those  who  have  best  expressed  the  need  of  a 
general  and  complete  social  reorganization  have  done  so  in  the 
name  of  Socialism.  Mr.  J.  R.  MacDonald,  recently  chairman 
of  the  British  Labour  Party,  for  example  writes  that  the 
problem  set  up  by  the  Socialists  is  that  of  "  co-ordinating 
the  forces  making  for  a  reconstruction  of  society  and  of  giv- 
ing them  rational  coherence  and  unity,"  (1)  while  the  organ 
of  the  middle-class  Socialists  of  England  says  that  their 
purpose  is  "  to  compel  legislators  to  organize  industry."  (2) 

Indeed,  the  necessity  and  practicability  of  an  orderly  and 
systematic  reorganization  in  industrial  society  has  been  the 
central  idea  of  British  Socialists  from  the  beginning,  while 
they  have  been  its  chief  exponents  in  the  international 
Socialist  movement.  But  the  idea  is  equally  widespread  out- 
side of  Socialist  circles.  It  will  be  hard  for  British  Socialists 
to  lay  an  exclusive  claim  to  this  conception  when  comrades  of 
such  international  prominence  as  Edward  Bernstein,  who 
holds  the  British  view  of  Socialism,  assert  that  Socialism 
itself  is  nothing  more  than  "  organizing  Liberalism."  (3) 

Whether  Socialists  were  the  first  to  promote  the  new 
political  philosophy  or  not,  it  is  undeniable  that  the  Radicals 


2  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

and  Liberals  of  Great  Britain  and  other  countries  have  now 
taken  it  up  and  are  making  it  their  own.  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill,  while  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  Mr. 
Lloyd  George,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  members  of  the 
British  Cabinet,  leaders  of  the  Liberal  Party,  recognize  that 
the  movement  among  governments  towards  a  conscious 
reorganization  of  industry  is  general  and  demands  that  Great 
Britain  should  keep  up  with  other  countries. 

"Look  at  our  neighbor  and  friendly  rival,  Germany," 
said  Mr.  Churchill  recently.  "I  see  that  great  State  or- 
ganized for  peace  and  organized  for  war,  to  a  degree  to 
which  we  cannot  pretend.  ...  A  more  scientific,  a  more 
elaborate,  a  more  comprehensive  social  organization  is 
indispensable  to  our  country  if  we  are  to  surmount  the  tri- 
als and  stresses  which  the  future  years  will  bring.  It 
is  this  organization  that  the  policy  of  the  Budget  will 
create."  (4) 

Advanced  and  radical  reformers  of  the  new  type  all  over 
the  world,  those  who  put  forward  a  general  plan  of  reform 
and  wish  to  go  to  the  common  roots  of  our  social  evils,  de- 
mand, first  of  all,  reorganization.  But  how  is  such  a  reor- 
ganization to  be  worked  out?  The  general  programs  have 
in  every  country  many  features  in  common.  To  see  what 
this  common  basis  is,  let  us  look  at  the  generalizations  of 
some  of  the  leading  reformers. 

One  of  the  most  scientific  and  "constructive"  is  Mr.  Sid- 
ney Webb.  No  one  has  so  thoroughly  mastered  the  history 
of  trade  unionism,  and  no  one  has  done  more  to  promote 
"municipal  Socialism"  in  England,  both  in  theory  and  in 
practice,  for  he  has  been  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  energetic 
and  progressive  London  County  council  from  the  beginning 
of  the  present  reform  period.  He  has  also  been  one  of  the 
chief  organizers  of  the  more  or  less  Socialistic  Fabian  Society, 
which'  has  done  more  towards  popularizing  social  reform  in 
England  than  any  other  single  educative  force,  besides  send- 
ing into  all  the  corners  of  the  world  a  new  and  rounded 
theory  of  social  reform  —  the  work  for  the  most  part  of 
Sidney  Webb,  Bernard  Shaw,  and  a  few  others. 

Mr.  Webb  has  given  us  several  excellent  phrases  which 
will  aid  us  to  sum  up  the  typical  social  reformers'  philosophy 
in  a  few  words.  He  insists  that  what  every  country  requires, 
and  especially  Great  Britain,  is  to  center  its  attention  on  the 
promotion  of  the  "national  efficiency."  This  refers  largely 


THE  CAPITALIST  REFORM  PROGRAM  3 

to  securing  a  businesslike  and  economic  administration  of 
the  existing  government  functions.  But  it  requires  also 
that  all  the  industries  and  economic  activities  of  the  country 
should  be  considered  the  business  of  the  nation,  that  the 
industrial  functions  of  the  government  should  be  extended, 
and  that,  even  from  the  business  point  of  view,  the  chief 
purpose  of  government  should  be  to  supervise  economic 
development. 

To  bring  about  the  maximum  of  efficiency  in  production 
would  require,  in  Mr.  Webb's  opinion  and  that  of  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  reformers  everywhere,  a  vast  ex- 
tension of  government  activities,  including  not  only  the 
nationalization  and  municipalization  of  many  industries  and 
services,  but  also  that  the  individual  workman  or  citizen  be 
dealt  with  as  the  chief  business  asset  of  the  nation  and  that 
wholesale  public  expenditures  be  entered  into  to  develop  his 
value.  Mr.  Webb  does  not  think  that  this  policy  is  neces- 
sarily Socialistic,  for,  as  he  very  wisely  remarks,  "the  nec- 
essary basis  of  society,  whether  the  superstructure  be  col- 
lectivist  or  individualist,  is  the  same." 

Mr.  Wells  in  his  "New  Worlds  for  Old"  also  claims  that 
the  new  policy  of  having  the  State  do  everything  that  can 
promote  industrial  efficiency  (which,  unlike  Mr.  Webb,  he 
persists  in  calling  Socialism)  is  to  the  interest  of  the  business 
man. 

"And 'does  the  honest  and  capable  business  man  stand  to  lose  or 
gain  by  the  coming  of  such  a  Socialist  government?"  he  asks. 
"  I  submit  that  on  the  whole  he  stands  to  gain.  .  .  . 

"Under  Socialist  government  such  as  is  quite  possible  in  Eng- 
land at  the  present  time :  — 

"He  will  be  restricted  from  methods  of  production  and  sale  that 
are  socially  mischievous. 

"He  will  pay  higher  wages. 

"He  will  pay  a  large  proportion  of  his  rent-rate  outgoings  to  the 
State  and  Municipality,  and  less  to  the  landlord.  Ultimately  he 
will  pay  it  all  to  the  State  or  Municipality,  and  as  a  voter  help  to 
determine  how  it  shall  be  spent,  and  the  landlord  will  become  a 
government  stockholder.  Practically  he  will  get  his  rent  returned 
to  him  in  public  service. 

"He  will  speedily  begin  to  get  better-educated,  better-fed,  and 
better-trained  workers,  so  that  he  will  get  money  value  for  the 
higher  wages  he  pays. 

"He  will  get  a  regular,  safe,  cheap  supply  of  power  and  material. 
He  will  get  cheaper  and  more  efficient  internal  and  external  transit. 


4  SOCIALISM   AS  IT  IS 

"He  will  be  under  an  organized  scientific  State,  which  will  natu- 
rally pursue  a  vigorous  scientific  collective  policy  in  support  of  the 
national  trade. 

"He  will  be  less  of  an  adventurer  and  more  of  a  citizen."  (5) 

Mr.  Churchill  while  denying  any  sympathy  for  Socialism, 
as  both  he  and  the  majority  of  Socialists  understand  it, 
frankly  avows  himself  a  collect! vist.  "The  whole  tendency 
of  civilization,"  he  says,  "is  towards  the  multiplication  of 
the  collective  functions  of  society.  The  ever  growing  com- 
plications of  civilizations  create  for  us  new  services  which 
have  to  be  undertaken  by  the  State,  and  create  for  us  an 
expansion  of  the  existing  services.  There  is  a  growing  feeling, 
which  I  entirely  share,  against  allowing  those  services  which 
are  in  the  nature  of  monopolies  to  pass  into  private  hands. 
[Mr.  Churchill  has  expressed  the  regret  that  the  railways 
are  not  in  the  hands  of  the  State.]  There  is  a  pretty  steady 
determination,  which  I  am  convinced  will  become  effective 
in  the  present  Parliament  to  intercept  all  future  unearned 
increment,  which  may  arise  from  the  increase  in  the  specu- 
lative value  of  the  land."  (6)  (Italics  mine.) 

Mr.  Churchill's  declared  intention  ultimately  "to  inter- 
cept all  future  unearned  increment"  of  the  land  is  certainly 
a  tremendous  step  towards  collectivism,  as  it  would  ulti- 
mately involve  the  nationalization  of  perhaps  a  third  of 
the  total  wealth  of  society.  With  railways  and  monopolies 
of  all  kinds  also  in  government  hands,  a  very  large  part 
of  the  industrial  capital  of  the  country  would  be  owned  by 
.the  State,  and,  though  all  agricultural  capital,  and  there- 
fore the  larger  part  of  the  total,  remained  in  private  hands, 
we  are  certainly  justified  in  calling  such  a  state  of  society 
capitalist  collectivism. 

But  not  one  of  the  elements  of  this  collectivism  is  a  novelty. 
Railroads  are  owned  by  governments  in  most  countries, 
and  monopolies  often  are.  The  partial  appropriation  of 
the  "unearned  increment"  is  by  no  means  new,  since  a 
similar  policy  is  being  adopted  in  Germany  at  the  present 
moment,  and  is  favored  not  by  the  radicals  alone,  but  by 
the  most  conservative  forces  in  the  country;  namely,  the 
party  of  landed  Prussian  nobility.  Count  Posadovsky,  a 
former  minister,  has  written  a  pamphlet  in  which  he  urges 
that  the  State  should  buy  up  the  land  in  and  about  the  cities, 
and  also  that  it  should  fix  a  definite  limit  beyond  which  land 
values  must  not  rise.  Nearly  all  the  chief  cities  of  Prussia, 


THE  CAPITALIST   REFORM  PROGRAM  5 

more  than  a  hundred,  are  enforcing  such  a  tax  in  a  moderate 
form,  and  the  conservatives  in  the  Reichstag  proposed  that 
the  national  government  should  be  given  a  right  to  tax  in 
the  same  field.  Their  bill  was  enacted,  and,  in  the  second  half 
of  1911,  the  German  government,  it  was  estimated,  would 
raise  over  $3,000,000  by  this  tax,  and  in  1912  it  is  expected 
to  give  $5,000,000.  This  tax,  which  is  collected  when  land 
changes  hands  by  sale  or  exchanges,  rises  gradually  to  30 
per  cent  when  the  increase  has  been  290  per  cent  or  more. 
Of  course  this  scale  is  likely  to  be  still  further  raised  and 
to  be  made  more  steep  as  the  tax  becomes  more  and  more 
popular. 

Mr.  Churchill's  defense  of  the  new  policy  of  the  British 
government  is  as  significant  as  the  new  laws  it  has  enacted :  — 

"You  may  say  that  unearned  increment  of  the  land,"  he  says, 
"is  on  all-fours  with  the  profit  gathered  by  one  of  those  American 
speculators  who  engineer  a  corner  in  corn,  or  meat,  or  cotton,  or 
some  other  vital  commodity,  and  that  the  unearned  increment  in 
land  is  reaped  by  the  land  monopolist  in  exact  proportion,  not  to  the 
service  but  to  the  disservice  done.  It  is  monopoly  which  is  the  key- 
note ;  and  where  monopoly  prevails,  the  greater  the  injury  to  society 
the  greater  the  reward  of  the  monopolist  will  be.  ... 

"  Every  form  of  enterprise,  every  step  in  material  progress,  is 
only  undertaken  after  the  land  monopolist  has  skimmed  the  cream 
off  for  himself,  and  everywhere  to-day  the  man,  or  the  public  body, 
who  wishes  to  put  land  to  its  highest  use  is  forced  to  pay  a  prelim- 
inary fine  in  land  values  to  the  man  who  is  putting  it  to  an  in- 
ferior use,  and  in  some  cases  to  no  use  at  all.  .  .  .  If  there  is  a  rise 
in  wages,  rents  are  able  to  move  forward  because  the  workers  can  afford 
to  pay  a  little  more.  If  the  opening  of  a  new  railway  or  a  new  tram- 
way, or  the  institution  of  an  improved  service  of  workmen's  trains, 
or  the  lowering  of  fares,  or  a  new  invention,  or  any  other  public 
convenience  affords  a  benefit  to  the  workers  in  any  particular  dis- 
trict, it  becomes  easier  for  them  to  live,  and  therefore  the  landlord 
and  the  ground  landlord,  one  on  top  of  the  other,  are  able  to  charge 
them  more  for  the  privilege  of  living  there."  (Italics  mine.)  (7) 

But  we  cannot  believe  that  the  government  of  Great 
Britain,  which  draws  so  much  of  its  support  from  the  wealthy 
free  trade  merchants  and  manufacturers  has  been  persuaded 
to  adopt  this  new  principle  so  much  by  the  argument  that  a 
land  rent  weighs  on  the  working  classes,  though  it  is  true 
that  the  manufacturer  may  have  to  pay  for  this  in  higher 
money  wages,  as  it  has  by  that  other  argument  of  Mr. 
Churchill's  that  it  weighs  directly  on  business. 


6  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"The  manufacturer  proposing  to  start  a  new  industry,"  he  says, 
"proposing  to  erect  a  great  factory  offering  employment  to  thousands 
of  hands,  is  made  to  pay  such  a  price  for  his  land  that  the  purchase 
price  hangs  around  the  neck  of  his  whole  business,  hampering  his 
competitive  power  in  every  market,  clogging  far  more  than  any 
foreign  tariff  in  his  export  competition ;  and  the  land  values  strike 
down  through  the  profits  of  the  manufacturer  on  to  the  wages  of  the 
workman.  The  railway  company  wishing  to  build  a  new  line  finds 
that  the  price  of  land  which  yesterday  was  only  rated  at  its  agri- 
cultural value  has  risen  to  a  prohibitive  figure  the  moment  it  was 
known  that  the  new  line  was  projected;  and  either  the  railway  is 
not  built,  or,  if  it  is,  it  is  built  only  on  terms  which  largely  transfer 
to  the  landowner  the  profits  which  are  due  to  shareholders  and  the 
privileges  which  should  have  accrued  to  the  traveling  public."  (My 
italics.)  (8) 

No  doubt  Mr.  Churchill's  failure  to  mention  shippers  was 
inadvertent. 

It  was  a  practical  application  of  these  business  principles 
and  chiefly  in  the  interest  of  the  employers,  manufacturers, 
investors,  and  shippers,  that  the  State  decided,  as  a  first 
step,  to  take  20  per  cent  of  all  the  increase  in  land  values 
from  the  present  date  and  to  levy  an  annual  tax  of  one  fifth  of 
one  per  cent  on  all  land  held  for  speculation,  i.e.  used  neither 
for  agricultural  nor  for  industrial  nor  building  purposes. 

The  collectivist  policy,  that  governments  should  undertake 
to  reorganize  industry  and  to  develop  the  industrial  efficiency 
of  the  population,  is  a  relatively  new  one,  however,  and  where 
non-Socialist  Liberals  and  Radicals  are  adopting  it,  they  do 
so  as  a  rule  with  apologies.  For  while  such  reforms  can  be 
considered  as  investments  which  in  the  long  run  repay  not 
only  the  community  as  a  whole,  but  also  the  business  inter- 
ests, they  involve  a  considerable  initial  cost,  even  beyond 
what  can  be  raised  by  the  gradual  expropriation  of  city  land 
rents,  and  the  question  at  once  arises  as  to  who  is  to  pay  the 
rest  of  the  bill.  The  supporter  of  the  new  reforms  answers 
that  the  business  interests  should  do  so,  since  the  develop- 
ment of  industry,  which  is  the  object  of  this  expenditure, 
is  more  profitable  to  them  than  to  other  classes.  While  Mr. 
Churchill  declares  that  Liberalism  attacks  landlordism  and 
monopoly  only,  and  not  capital  itself,  as  Socialism  does,  he 
is  at  great  pains  to  show  that  the  cost  of  the  elaborate  pro- 
gram of  social  reform  is  borne  not  by  monopolist  alone,  but 
by  that  larger  section  of  the  business  interests  vaguely 
known  as  those  possessing  "Special  Privileges."  In  dis- 


THE  CAPITALIST  REFORM  PROGRAM  7 

tributing  the  new  taxes  in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  ques- 
tion to  be  asked  of  each  class  of  wealth  is,  he  says,  "By 
what  process  was  it  got?"  and  a  distinction  is  to  be  made, 
not  between  monopoly  and  competitive  business,  but  "be- 
tween wealth  which  is  the  fruit  of  productive  enterprise  and 
industry  or  of  individual  skill,  and  wealth  which  represents 
the  capture  by  individuals  of  socially  created  values."  (9) 

"A  special  burden,"  says  Mr.  Churchill,  "is  to  be  laid  upon 
certain  forms  of  wealth  which  are  clearly  social  in  their  origin 
and  have  not  at  any  point  been  derived  from  a  useful  or 
productive  process  on  the  part  of  their  possessors."  (10) 
And  since  all  income  "derived  from  dividends,  rent,  or  inter- 
est," is,  according  to  Mr.  Churchill,  unearned  increment,  it 
is  evident  that  nearly  every  business,  all  being  beneficiaries, 
ought  to  share  the  burden  of  the  new  reforms.  (11)  At  the 
same  time  he  hastens  to  reassure  his  wealthy  supporters, 
especially  among  merchants  and  shippers,  on  grounds  ex- 
plained below  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  that  the  new  taxes  will 
not  rise  faster  than  the  new  profits  they  will  bring  in,  that  they 
"will  not  appreciably  affect,  have  not  appreciably  affected, 
the  comfort,  the  status,  or  even  the  style  of  living  of  any 
class  in  the  United  Kingdom."  (12) 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  in  proposing  the  so-called  Socialistic 
Budget  of  1910  reminded  the  representatives  of  the  propertied 
interests  [he  might  have  added  "in  proportion  to  their 
wealth"]  that  the  State,  in  which  they  all  owned  a  share, 
should  not  be  looked  upon  so  narrowly  as  a  capitalistic 
enterprise.  They  could  afford  to  allow  the  State  to  wait 
longer  for  its  returns. 

"A  State  can  and  ought  to  take  a  longer  and  a  wider  view  of  its 
investments,"  said  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  "than  individuals.  The  re- 
settlement of  deserted  and  impoverished  parts  of  its  own  territories 
may  not  bring  to  its  coffers  a  direct  return  which  would  reimburse 
it  fully  for  its  expenditure ;  but  the  indirect  enrichment  of  its  re- 
sources more  than  compensate  it  for  any  apparent  and  immediate 
loss.  The  individual  can  rarely  afford  to  wait ;  a  State  can ;  the 
individual  must  judge  of  the  success  of  his  enterprise  by  the  testi- 
mony given  for  it  by  his  bank  book ;  a  State  keeps  many  ledgers, 
not  all  in  ink,  and  when  we  wish  to  judge  of  the  advantage  derived  by 
a  country  from  a  costly  experiment,  we  must  examine  all  those  books 
before  we  venture  to  pronounce  judgment.  .  .  . 

"We  want  to  do  more  in  the  way  of  developing  the  resources  of 
our  own  country.  .  .  . 

"The  State  can  help  by  instruction,  by  experiment,  by  organiza- 


8  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

tion,  by  direction,  and  even,  in  certain  cases  which  are  outside  the 
legitimate  sphere  of  individual  enterprise,  by  incurring  direct  re- 
sponsibility. I  doubt  whether  there  is  a  great  industrial  country 
in  the  world  which  spends  less  money  on  work  directly  connected 
with  the  development  of  its  resources  than  we  do.  Take,  if  you  like, 
and  purely  as  an  illustration,  one  industry  alone,  —  agriculture,  — • 
of  all  industries  the  most  important  for  the  permanent  well-being 
of  any  land.  Examine  the  budgets  of  foreign  lands,  —  we  have  the 
advantage  in  other  directions,  —  but  examine  and  compare  them 
with  our  own,  and  Honorable  .Members  will  be  rather  ashamed  at 
the  contrasts  between  the  wise  and  lavish  generosity  of  countries 
much  poorer  than  ours  and  the  short-sighted  and  niggardly  parsi- 
mony with  which  we  dole  out  small  sums  of  money  for  the  encour- 
agement of  agriculture  in  our  country.  .  .  . 

"We  are  not  getting  out  of  the  land  anything  like  what  it  is 
capable  of  endowing  us  with.  Of  the  enormous  quantity  of  agri- 
cultural and  dairy  produce,  and  fruit,  and  the  timber  imported  into 
this  country,  a  considerable  portion  could  be  raised  on  our  own 
lands."  (13) 

The  proposed  industrial  advance  is  to  be  secured  largely 
at  the  expense  of  capital,  but  for  its  ultimate  profit.  The 
capitalists  are  to  pay  the  initial  cost.  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
is  very  careful  to  remind  them  that  even  if  the  present  in- 
come tax  were  doubled,  five  years  of  the  phenomenal  yet 
steady  growth  of  the  income  of  the  rich  and  well-to-do 
who  pay  this  tax,  would  leave  them  as  well  off  as  they  were 
before.  He  proposes  to  leave  the  total  capital  in  private 
hands  intact  on  the  pretext  that  it  is  needed  as  "an  available 
reserve  for  national  emergencies."  And  as  an  evidence  of 
this  he  refused  to  increase  the  existing  rate  of  inheritance 
tax  levied  against  the  very  largest  estates  (15  per  cent  on 
estates  of  more  than  £3,000,000).  Though  up  to  this  point 
he  graduated  this  tax  more  steeply  than  before,  and  nothing 
could  be  more  widely  popular  than  a  special  attack  on  such 
colossal  estates,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  draws  the  line  at  15  per 
cent,  on  the  ground  that  a  large  part  of  the  income  from  such 
estates  goes  into  investments,  and  more  confiscatory  legis- 
lation might  seriously  affect  the  normal  increase  of  the  capital 
and  "the  available  reserves  of  taxation"  of  the  country.  (14) 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  does  not  fail  to  guarantee  to  capital 
as  a  whole,  "honest  capital,"  that  it  will  suffer  no  loss  from 
his  reforms.  "I  am  not  one  of  those  who  advocate  confis- 
cation," he  said  several  years  ago,  "and  at  any  rate  as  far 
as  I  am  concerned  honest  capital,  capital  put  in  honest  indus- 


THE   CAPITALIST   REFORM  PROGRAM  9 

tries  for  the  development  of  the  industry,  the  trade,  the 
commerce,  of  this  country  will  have  nothing  to  fear  from  any 
proposal  I  shall  ever  be  responsible  for  submitting  to  the 
Parliament  of  this  realm."  (My  italics.)  (15) 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  is  well  justified,  then,  in  ridiculing  the 
idea  that  he  is  waging  war  against  industry  or  property  or 
trying  to  destroy  riches.  He  not  only  disproves  this  accusa- 
tion by  pointing  to  the  capitalist  character  of  his  collectivist 
program,  but  boasts  that  the  richest  men  in  the  House  of 
Commons  are  on  the  Liberal  side,  together  with  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  the  men  who  are  building  up  trade  and  business. 

And  the  attitude  of  the  Radicals  of  the  present  British 
government  is  the  same  as  that  of  capitalist  collectivists 
elsewhere.  However  certain  vested  interests  may  suffer, 
there  is  nowhere  any  tendency  to  weaken  capitalism  as  a 
whole.  Capitalism  is  to  be  the  chief  beneficiary  of  the  new 
movement. 

There  are  many  differences  of  opinion,  however,  as  to  the 
ultimate  effect  of  the  collectivist  program.  In  Great  Britain, 
which  gives  us  our  best  illustration,  there  are  Liberals  who 
claim  that  it  is  Socialistic  and  others  who  deny  that  it  has 
anything  to  do  with  Socialism;  Conservatives  who  accept 
part  of  the  program,  and  others  who  reject  the  whole  as  being 
Socialistic ;  Socialists,  who  claim  that  their  ideas  have  been 
incorporated  in  the  last  two  Budgets,  and  other  Socialists 
who  deny  that  either  had  anything  in  common  with  their 
principles. 

While  it  is  certain  that  the  present  policy  of  the  British 
government  is  by  no  means  directed  against  the  power  or 
interests  of  the  capitalist  class  as  a  whole,  and  in  no  way  re- 
sembles that  of  the  Socialists,  were  not  Socialist  arguments 
used  to  support  the  government's  position,  and  may  not 
these  lead  towards  a  Socialist  policy  ? 

Certainly  some  of  the  principles  laid  down  seem  at  first 
sight  to  have  been  Socialistic  enough.  For  example,  when 
Mr.  Churchill  said  that  incomes  from  dividends,  rent,  and 
interest  are  unearned,  or  when  Mr.  Lloyd  George  cried  out: 
"Who  is  responsible  for  the  scheme  of  things  whereby  one 
man  is  engaged  through  life  in  grinding  labor  to  win  a  bare 
and  precarious  subsistence  for  himself,  and  when,  at  the 
end  of  his  days,  he  claims  at  the  hands  of  the  community 
he  served,  a  poor  pension  of  eight  pence  a  day,  he  can  only 
get  it  through  a  revolution,  and  another  man  who  does  not 


10  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

toil  receives  every  hour  of  the  day,  every  hour  of  the  night, 
whilst  he  slumbers,  more  than  his  poor  neighbor  receives 
in  a  whole  year  of  toil?  Where  did  the  table  of  that  law 
come  from?  Whose  fingers  inscribed  it?"  (16) 

Lord  Rosebery  has  pointed  to  the  extremely  radical  nature 
of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  arguments.  The  representatives  of 
the  Government  had  urged,  he  said,  that  the  land  should  be 
taxed  without  mercy :  — 

"  (1)  because  its  existence  is  not  due  to  the  owner; 

"  (2)  because  it  is  limited  in  quantity; 

"  (3)  because  it  owes  nothing  of  its  value  to  anything  the 
owner  does  or  spends; 

"(4)  because  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  existence  and 
production."  (17) 

Lord  Rosebery  says,  justly,  that  all  these  propositions 
except  the  last  apply  to  many  other  forms  of  property  than 
land,  as,  for  instance,  to  government  bonds,  and  that  it 
certainly  would  be  Socialism  to  attempt  to  confiscate  these 
by  taxation. 

Lord  Rosebery's  task  would  have  become  even  easier  later, 
when  Mr.  Lloyd  George  enlarged  his  attack  on  the  landlords 
definitely  into  an  attack  against  the  idle  upper  classes,  who 
with  their  dependents  he  reckoned  at  two  million  persons. 
He  accused  this  class  of  constituting  an  intolerable  burden 
on  the  community,  said  that  its  existence  was  the  symptom 
of  the  disease  of  society,  and  that  only  bold  remedies  could 
help.  The  whole  class  of  inactive  capitalists  he  viewed  as 
a  load  both  on  the  noncapitalist,  wage-earning,  salaried  and 
professional  classes,  and  on  the  active  capitalists.  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  argues  with  his  capitalist  supporters  that  capitalism 
will  be  all  the  stronger  when  freed  from  its  parasites.  But 
Lord  Rosebery  could  answer  that  the  active  could  no  more 
be  distinguished  from  the  passive  capitalists  than  land-owners 
from  bondholders. 

An  article  in  the  world's  leading  Socialist  newspaper, 
Vorwaerts,  of  Berlin,  shows  that  many  Socialists  even  regarded 
these  speeches  as  revolutionary :  — 

"The  Radical  wing  of  the  British  Liberals,"  it  said,  "is  leading 
the  attack  with  ideal  recklessness  and  lust  of  battle.  It  is  conduct- 
ing the  agitation  in  language  which  in  Germany  is  customarily  used 
only  by  a  'red  revolutionist.'  If  the  German  Junker  (landlord 
conservative)  were  to  read  these  speeches,  he  would  swear  that  they 
were  delivered  by  the  Social  Democrats  of  the  reddest  dye,  so  fero- 


THE  CAPITALIST  REFORM  PROGRAM  11 

ciously  do  they  contrast  between  the  rich  and  the  poor.  They  appeal 
to  the  passion  of  the  people ;  they  exploit  social  distinctions  in  the 
manner  best  calculated  to  fire  popular  anger  against  the  Lords. 

"In  the  heart  of  battle  the  Liberals  are  employing  language  which 
at  other  times  t»  ey  would  have  considered  twice.  Their  words  will 
some  day  be  assuredly  turned  against  them,  when  more  than  the 
mere  Budget  or  the  existence  of  the  Lords  is  at  stake.  When  the 
Liberals,  allied  with  the  conservative  enemy  of  to-day,  are  fighting 
the  working  classes,  the  Socialists  will  recall  this  language  as  proof 
that  the  Liberals  themselves  recognize  the  injustice  of  the  existing 
order. 

"Mr.  Lloyd  George  made  such  a  speech  at  Newcastle  that  the 
seeds  he  is  planting  may  first  bring  forth  Liberal  fruit,  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Socialism  will  eventually  reap  the  harvest.  His 
arguments  must  arouse  the  workingmen,  and  when  they  have 
accustomed  themselves  to  look  at  things  from  this  standpoint  it  is 
certain  that  once  standing  before  the  safes  of  the  industrial  capitalists 
they  will  never  close  their  eyes." 

It  is  perhaps  true  that  the  Socialists  will  at  some  future 
day  reap  the  harvest  from  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  and  Mr. 
Churchill's  campaigns,  though  a  careful  analysis  of  the  expres- 
sions of  these  statesmen  will  show  that  they  have  said  nothing 
and  done  nothing  in  contradiction  to  their  State-capitalistic 
or  "State  Socialist"  standpoint. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  principle  of  the  new  taxes  and 
the  new  expenditure  these  statesmen  are  introducing  is 
radical,  and  that  it  marks  a  great  stride  towards  a  collectivist 
form  of  capitalism.  Let  us  assume  that  development  con- 
tinues along  the  lines  of  their  present  policies.  In  a  very  few 
years  the  increased  expenditure  on  social  reform  will  be 
greater  than  the  increased  expenditure  on  army  and  navy, 
and  the  increase  of  direct  and  graduated  taxes  that  fall  on 
the  upper  classes  will  be  greater  than  that  of  the  indirect 
taxes  that  fall  on  the  masses.  We  will  assume  even  that 
military  expenditure  and  indirect  taxes  on  articles  the  work- 
ing people  consume  will  begin  some  day  to  decrease,  while 
graduated  taxes  directed  against  the  very  wealthy  and  social 
reform  expenditures  rise  until  they  quite  overshadow  them. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  social  reformers  of 
the  British  and  other  governments  hope  for  such  an  outcome 
and  expect  it.  This  would  be  in  no  way  inconsistent  with 
their  policy  of  subordinating  everything,  to  use  one  of  their 
expressions,  to  "that  trade  and  commerce  which  constitutes 
the  source  of  our  wealth." 


12  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

For  the  collectivist  expenditures,  intended  to  increase 
the  national  product  through  governmental  enterprises  for 
the  promotion  of  industry,  and  for  raising  the  industrial 
efficiency  of  the  workers,  would  be  introduced  gradually, 
and  would  soon  be  accompanied  by  results  which  would  show 
that  they  paid  financially.  And  finally,  even  if  railways  and 
monopolies  were  nationalized  and  their  profits  as  well  as  all 
the  future  rise  in  land  value  went  to  the  State  to  be  used  for 
these  purposes,  as  Mr.  Churchill  hopes,  and  even  if  a  method 
could  be  found  by  which  a  large  part  of  the  income  of  the 
idle  rich  would  be  confiscated  without  touching  the  active 
capital  of  the  merchant  and  manufacturer,  the  position  of  the 
latter  classes,  through  this  policy,  might  become  still  more 
superior  relatively  to  that  of  the  masses  than  it  is  at  present. 
The  industrial  capitalists  might  even  control  a  larger  share 
of  the  national  income  and  exercise  a  still  more  powerful 
influence  over  the  State  than  they  do  to-day. 

The  classes  that  the  more  or  less  collectivist  budgets  of 
1910  and  1911  actually  do  favor,  those  whose  economic 
and  political  power  they  actually  do  increase,  are  the  small 
and  middle-sized  capitalists  and  even  the  larger  capitalists 
other  than  landlords  and  monopolists.  The  great  mass  of 
income  taxpayers,  business  men,  farmers,  and  the  profes- 
sional classes  with  incomes  from  about  £200  to  £3000 
($1000  to  $15,000)  are  given  every  encouragement,  while 
those  with  somewhat  larger  incomes  are  only  slightly  dis- 
criminated against  on  the  surface,  in  the  incidence  of  the 
taxes,  and  not  at  all  when  we  inquire  into  the  ways  in  which  the 
taxes  are  being  expended.  Certainly  nothing  is  being  done 
that  will  "appreciably  affect  the  status  or  style  of  living  of 
any  class  in  the  United  Kingdom,"  or  that  will  check  materially 
the  enormous  rise  of  this  "upper  middle"  class  both  in  wealth 
and  numbers  —  for  the  income  tax  payers  have  doubled 
their  income  in  a  little  more  than  a  decade,  until  it  has  reached 
the  total  of  more  than  a  billion  pounds  a  year.  And  surely 
no  tendency  could  be  more  diametrically  opposed  to  a  Social- 
ism whose  purpose  it  is  to  improve  the  relative  position  of 
the  "lower  middle"  and  working  classes. 

While  the  new  reform  programs  of  the  various  parties 
are  in  general  agreement  in  all  countries,  in  that  they  are 
all  collectivist,  and  favor  as  a  rule  the  same  social  classes, 
there  is  much  controversy  as  to  names,  whether  they  shall 
be  called  Socialistic  or  merely  radical  or  progressive.  The 
question  is  really  immaterial. 


THE  CAPITALIST  REFORM  PROGRAM  13 

"Capital,  divested  of  its  perversions,  would  be  natural 
Socialism,"  says  one  of  Henry  George's  most  prominent 
disciples.  (18)  Whether  the  proposed  reforming  is  done  with 
a  purified  and  strengthened  capitalism  in  view,  or  in  the  name 
of  "natural  Socialism"  or  "State  Socialism,"  the  program 
itself  is  in  every  practical  aspect  the  same. 

If  a  contrast  formerly  appeared  to  exist  between  "Individ- 
ualist" and  "State  Socialist"  reformers,  it  was  never  more 
than  a  contrast  in  theory,  quickly  dispelled  when  the  time 
for  action  arrived.  The  individualist  radical  would  have  the 
State  do  as  little  as  possible,  but  still  is  compelled  to  resort 
to  an  increase  of  its  powers  at  every  turn ;  the  "State  Social- 
ist" would  have  the  State  do  as  much  as  practicable,  but 
would  still  retain  State  action  within  the  rigid  limits  imposed 
by  the  need  of  gaining  capitalist  support  and  the  desire  for 
immediate  political  success.  In  economic  policy  the  Indi- 
vidualist is  for  checking  the  excess  of  monopoly  and  special 
privilege  in  order  to  allow  "equal  opportunity"  or  a  free 
development  to  whatever  competition  or  "natural  Capital- 
ism" remains,  while  the  "State  Socialist"  is  more  concerned 
with  protecting  and  promoting  the  natural  checking  of 
the  excesses  of  competitive  capitalism  and  private  property 
that  comes  with  "natural  monopoly"  and  its  regulation  by 
government.  The  "State  Socialist,"  however  critical  he  is 
towards  competition,  recognizes  that  the  first  practical  possi- 
bility of  putting  an  end  to  its  excesses  comes  when  monopoly 
is  already  established,  and  when  it  is  relatively  easy  for  the 
State  to  step  in  to  nationalize  or  municipalize ;  the  Individu- 
alist reformer  who  wishes  to  preserve  competition  where  prac- 
ticable, at  the  same  time  recognizes  that  it  is  impossible  to  do 
so  where  monopolies  have  become  firmly  rooted  in  certain  in- 
dustries, and  he  also  at  this  point  proposes  nationalization, 
municipalization,  or  thoroughgoing  governmental  control. 

Henry  George  himself  recognizes  that  "State  Socialism," 
which  he  called  simply  "Socialism,"  and  the  "natural  Capi- 
talism" he  advocated,  far  from  being  contradictory,  were 
complementary  and  interdependent.  Mr.  Louis  Post  says  :  — 

"Even  in  the  economic  chapters  of  'Progress  and  Poverty'  its 
author  saw  the  possibility  of  society's  approaching  the  'ideal  of 
Jeffersonian  Democracy,  the  promised  land  of  Herbert  Spencer,  the 
abolition  of  government.  But  of  government  only  as  a  directing 
and  repressive  power.'  At  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  degree 
of  approach,  he  regarded  it  as  possible  for  society  also  to  realize  the 
dream  of  Socialism."  (19) 


14  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

The  following  passage  leaves  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Post  is 
correct,  and  at  the  same  time  shows  in  the  clearest  way  how 
the  two  policies  of  reform  were  interwoven  in  Henry  George's 
mind :  — 

"Government  could  take  up  itself  the  transmission  of  messages 
by  telegraph,  as  well  as  by  mail,  of  building  and  operating  railroads, 
as  well  as  of  the  opening  and  maintaining  common  roads.  With 
the  present  functions  so  simplified  and  reduced,  functions  such  as 
these  could  be  assumed  without  danger  or  strain,  and  would  be  under 
the  supervision  of  public  attention,  which  is  now  distracted.  There 
would  be  a  great  and  increasing  surplus  revenue  from  the  taxation  of 
land  values  for  material  progress,  which  would  go  on  with  great 
accelerated  rapidity,  would  tend  constantly  to  increase  rent.  This 
revenue  arising  from  the  common  property  would  be  applied  to  the 
common  benefit,  as  were  the  revenues  of  Sparta.  We  might  not 
establish  public  tables  —  they  would  be  unnecessary,  but  we  could 
establish  public  baths,  museums,  libraries,  gardens,  lecture  rooms, 
music  and  dancing  halls,  theaters,  universities,  technical  schools, 
shooting  galleries,  playgrounds,  gymnasiums,  etc.  Heat,  light, 
and  motive  power,  as  well  as  water,  might  be  conducted  through  our 
streets  at  public  expense ;  our  roads  be  lined  with  fruit  trees ;  dis- 
coveries and  inventors  rewarded,  scientific  investigation  supported ; 
in  a  thousand  ways  the  public  revenues  made  to  foster  efforts  for  the 
public  benefit.  We  should  reach  the  ideal  of  the  Socialist,  but  not 
through  government  repression.  Government  would  change  its 
character,  and  would  become  the  administration  of  a  great  cooperative 
society.  It  would  become  merely  the  agency  by  which  the  common  prop- 
erty was  administered  for  the  common  benefit."  (Italics  mine.)  (20) 

But  the  "State  Socialist"  and  the  Individualist  reformer, 
who  are  often  combined  in  one  person,  as  in  the  case  of  Henry 
George,  differ  sharply  from  Socialists  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment in  aiming  at  a  society,  which,  however  widely  govern- 
ment action  is  to  be  extended,  is  after  all  to  remain  a  society 
of  small  capitalists. 

Professor  Edward  A.  Ross  very  aptly  sums  up  the  re- 
former's objections  to  the  anti-capitalist  Socialists.  Capital- 
ism must  be  "divested  of  its  perversions,"  the  privately 
owned  monopolies  and  their  political  machines,  primarily  for 
the  purpose  of  strengthening  it  against  Socialism.  "In- 
dividualism should  make  haste  to  clean  the  hull  of  the  old 
ship  for  the  coming  great  battle  with  the  opponents  of  private 
capital  ..."  The  reformers,  as  a  rule,  like  Professor  Ross, 
consciously  stand  for  a  new  form  of  private  capitalism,  to  be 
built  up  with  the  aid  of  the  State.  This  is  the  avowed 


THE  CAPITALIST  REFORM  PROGRAM  15 

attitude  of  the  larger  part  of  the  "progressives,"  "radicals," 
and  "insurgents"  of  the  day. 

The  new  reform  programs,  however  radical,  are  aimed  at 
regenerating  capitalism.  The  most  radical  of  all,  that  of  the 
single  taxers,  who  plan  not  only  that  the  state  shall  be  the 
sole  landlord,  but  that  the  railways  and  the  mines  shall  be 
nationalized  and  other  public  utilities  municipalized,  do 
not  deny  that  they  want  to  put  a  new  life  into  private  capital- 
ism, and  to  stimulate  commercial  competition  in  the  remain- 
ing fields  of  industry.  Mr.  Frederick  C.  Howe,  for  instance, 
predicts  a  revival  of  capitalistic  enterprise,  after  these  meas- 
ures are  enacted,  and  even  looks  forward  to  the  indefinite 
continuation  of  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor.  (22) 


CHAPTER  II 


PRESIDENT  TAFT  says  that  if  we  cannot  restore  competition, 
"we  must  proceed  to  State  Socialism  and  vest  the  govern- 
ment with  power  to  control  every  business."  As  competition 
cannot  be  revived  in  industries  that  have  been  reorganized 
on  a  monopolistic  basis,  this  is  an  admission  that,  in  such 
industries,  there  is  no  alternative  to  "State  Socialism." 

The  smaller  capitalists  and  business  interests  have  not 
yet  reconciled  themselves,  any  more  than  President  Taft, 
to  what  the  Supreme  Court,  in  the  Standard  Oil  Case,  called 
"the  inevitable  operation  of  economic  forces,"  and  are  just 
beginning  to  see  that  the  only  way  to  protect  the  industries 
•that  remain  on  the  competitive  basis  is  to  have  the  govern- 
ment take  charge  of  those  that  have  already  been  monopo- 
lized. But  the  situation  in  Panama  and  Alaska  and  the  grow- 
ing control  over  railroads  and  banks  show  that  the  United 
States  is  being  swept  along  in  the  world-wide  tide  towards 
collectivism,  and  innumerable  symptoms  of  change  in  public 
opinion  indicate  that  within  a  few  years  the  smaller  capital- 
ists of  the  United  States,  like  those  of  Germany  and  Great 
Britain,  will  be  working  with  the  economic  forces  instead 
of  trying  to  work  against  them.  Monopolies,  they  are  begin- 
ning to  see,  cannot  be  destroyed  by  private  competition, 
even  when  it  is  encouraged  by  the  legislation  and  the  courts, 
and  must  be  controlled  by  the  government.  But  govern- 
ment regulation  is  no  lasting  condition.  If  investors  and  con- 
sumers are  to  be  protected,  wage  earners  will  most  certainly 
be  protected  also  —  as  Mr.  Roosevelt  advocates.  And  from 
government  control  of  wages,  prices,  and  securities  it  is  not 
a  long  step  to  government  ownership. 

The  actual  disappearance  of  competition  and  the  growing 
harmony  of  all  the  business  interests  among  themselves  are 
removing  every  motive  for  continued  opposition  to  some  form 
of  State  control,  —  and  even  the  more  far-sighted  of  the 
"Captains  of  Industry,"  like  Judge  Gary  of  the  Steel  Cor- 

16 


THE  NEW  CAPITALISM  17 

poration  and  many  others,  are  beginning  to  see  how  the  new 
policy  and  their  own  plans  can  be  made  to  harmonize.  The 
"Interests"  have  only  recently  become  sufficiently  united, 
however,  to  make  a  common  political  effort,  and  it  is  only 
after  mature  deliberation  that  the  more  statesmanlike  of  the 
capitalists  are  beginning  to  feel  confident  that  they  have 
found  a  political  plan  that  will  succeed.  As  long  as  the 
business  world  was  itself  fundamentally  divided,  small 
capitalists  against  large,  one  industry  against  the  other, 
and  even  one  establishment  against  another  in  the  same 
industry,  it  was  impossible  for  the  capitalists  to  secure  any 
united  control  over  the  government.  The  lack  of  organiza- 
tion, the  presence  of  competition  at  every  point,  made  it  im- 
possible that  they  should  agree  upon  anything  but  a  negative 
political  policy. 

But  now  that  business  is  gradually  becoming  politically 
as  well  as  economically  unified,  government  ownership  and 
the  other  projects  of  "State  Socialism"  are  no  longer  opposed 
on  the  ground  that  they  must  necessarily  prove  unprofitable 
to  capital.  If  their  introduction  is  delayed,  it  is  at  the  bottom 
because  they  will  require  an  enormous  investment,  and  other 
employments  of  capital  are  still  more  immediately  profitable. 
Machinery,  land,  and  other  material  factors  still  demand 
enormous  outlays  and  give  immediate  returns,  while  invest- 
ments in  reforestation  or  in  the  improvement  of  laborers, 
for  example,  only  bring  their  maximum  returns  after  a  full 
generation.  But  the  semi-monopolistic  capitalism  of  to-day 
is  far  richer  than  was  its  competitive  predecessor.  It  can 
now  afford  to  date  a  part  of  its  expected  returns  many  years 
ahead.  Already  railroads  have  done  this  in  building  some 
of  their  extensions.  Nations  have  often  done  it,  as  in  build- 
ing a  Panama  Canal.  And  as  capitalism  becomes  further 
organized  and  gives  more  attention  to  government,  and  the 
State  takes  up  such  functions  as  the  capitalists  direct,  they 
will  double  and  multiply  many  fold  their  long-term  govern- 
mental investments  —  in  the  form  of  expenditures  for  indus- 
trial activities  and  social  reforms. 

Already  leading  capitalists  in  this  country  as  well  as  else- 
where welcome  the  extension  of  government  into  the  business 
field.  The  control  of  the  railroads  by  a  special  court  over 
which  the  railroads  have  a  large  influence  proves  to  be  just 
what  the  railroads  have  wanted,  while  there  is  a  growing  belief 
among  them,  to  which  their  directors  and  officers  occasionally 


18  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

give  expression,  that  the  day  may  come,  perhaps  with  the 
competition  of  the  Panama  Canal,  when  it  will  be  profitable 
to  sell  out  to  the  government  —  at  a  good,  round  figure,  of 
course,  such  as  was  recently  paid  for  railroads  in  France  and 
Italy.  Similarly  the  new  wireless  systems  are  leading  to 
a  capitalistic  demand  for  government  purchase  of  the  old 
telegraph  systems. 

Mr.  George  W.  Perkins,  recently  partner  of  Mr.  J.  P. 
Morgan,  foreshadows  the  new  policy  in  another  form  when 
he  advocates  a  Supreme  Court  of  Business  (as  a  preventive 
of  Socialism) :  — 

"Federal  legislation  is  feasible,  and  if  we  unite  the  work  for  it 
now  we  may  be  able  to  secure  it ;  whereas,  if  we  continue  to  fight 
against  it  much  longer,  the  incoming  time  may  sweep  the  question 
along  either  to  government  ownership  or  to  Socialism  [Mr.  Per- 
kins recognizes  that  they  are  two  different  things], 

"  I  have  long  believed  that  we  should  have  at  Washington  a  busi- 
ness court,  to  which  our  great  problems  would  go  for  final  adjust- 
ment when  they  could  not  be  settled  otherwise.  We  now  have  at 
Washington  a  Supreme  Court,  composed,  of  course,  of  lawyers  only, 
and  it  is  the  dream  of  every  young  man  who  enters  law  that  he  may 
some  day  be  called  to  the  Supreme  Court  bench.  Why  not  have 
a  similar  goal  for  our  business  men?  Why  not  have  a  court  for 
business  questions,  on  which  no  man  could  sit  who  has  not  had 
a  business  training  with  an  honorable  record?  The  supervision  of 
business  by  such  a  body  of  men,  who  had  reached  such  a  court  in 
such  a  way,  would  unquestionably  be  fair  and  equitable  to  business, 
fair  and  equitable  to  the  public."  (Italics  mine.) 

Mr.  Roosevelt  and  Senator  Root  are  similarly  inspired  by 
the  quasi-partnership  that  exists  between  the  government  and 
business  in  those  countries  where  prices  and  wages  in  certain 
monopolized  industries  are  regulated  for  the  general  good  of 
the  business  interests.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Root :  — 

"  Germany,  to  a  considerable  extent,  requires  combination  of 
her  manufacturers,  producers,  and  commercial  concerns.  Japan 
also  practically  does  this.  But  in  the  United  States  it  cannot  be 
done  under  government  leadership,  because  the  people  do  not 
conceive  it  to  be  the  government's  function.  It  seems  to  be  rather 
that  the  government  is  largely  taken  up  with  breaking  up  or- 
ganizations, and  that  reduces  the  industrial  efficiency  of  the 
country."  (My  italics.) 

As  the  great  interests  become  "integrated,"  i.e.  more  and 
more  interrelated  and  interdependent,  the  good  of  one  be- 


THE  NEW    CAPITALISM  19 

comes  the  good  of  all,  and  the  policy  of  utilizing  and  control- 
ling, instead  of  opposing  the  new  industrial  activities  of  the 
government,  is  bound  to  become  general.  The  enlightened 
element  among  the  capitalists,  composed  of  those  who  desire 
a  partnership  rather  than  warfare  with  the  government,  will 
soon  represent  the  larger  part  of  the  business  world. 

Mr.  Lincoln  Steff ens  reflects  the  views  of  many,  however, 
when  he  denies  that  the  financial  magnates  are  as  yet  guided 
by  this  "enlightened  selfishness,"  and  says  that  they  are  only 
just  becoming  "class-conscious,"  and  it  is  true  that  they  have 
not  yet  worked  out  any  elaborate  policy  of  social  reform  or 
government  ownership.  None  but  the  most  powerful  are 
yet  able,  even  in  their  minds,  to  make  the  necessary  sacrifices 
of  the  capitalism  of  the  present  for  that  of  the  future.  The 
majority  (as  he  says)  still  "undermine  the  law"  instead  of 
more  firmly  intrenching  themselves  in  the  government,  and 
"corrupt  the  State"  instead  of  installing  friendly  reform 
administrations;  they  still  "employ  little  children,  and  so 
exhaust  them  that  they  are  poor  producers  when  they  grow 
up,"  instead  of  making  them  strong  and  healthy  and  teach- 
ing them  skill  at  their  trades;  they  still  "don't  want  all 
the  money  they  make,  don't  care  for  things  they  buy,  and 
don't  all  appreciate  the  power  they  possess  and  bestow." 
But  all  these  are  passing  characteristics.  If  it  took  less  than 
twenty  years  to  build  up  the  corporations  until  the  present 
community  of  interests  almost  forms  a  trust  of  trusts,  how 
long,  we  may  ask,  will  it  take  the  new  magnates  to  learn  to 
"appreciate"  their  power?  How  long  will  it  take  them  to 
learn  to  enter  into  partnership  with  the  government  instead 
of  corrupting  it  from  without,  and  to  see  that,  if  they  don't 
want  to  increase  the  wages  and  buying  power  of  the  workers, 
"who,  as  consumers,  are  the  market,"  the  evident  and  easy 
alternative  is  to  learn  new  ways  of  spending  their  own  sur- 
plus ?  The  example  of  the  Astors  and  the  Vanderbilts  on  the 
one  hand,  and  Mr.  Rockefeller's  Benevolent  Trust,  on  the 
other,  show  that  these  ways  are  infinitely  varied  and  easily 
learned.  Will  it  take  the  capitalists  longer  to  learn  to  use 
the  government  for  their  purposes  rather  than  to  abuse  it  ? 

It  is  neither  necessary  nor  desirable,  from  the  standpoint  of 
an  enlightened  capitalism,  that  the  control  of  government 
should  rest  entirely  in  the  hands  of  "Big  Business,"  or  the 
"Interests."  On  the  contrary,  it  is  to  the  interest  of  capital 
that  all  capitalists,  and  all  business  interests  of  any  perma- 


20  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

nence,  should  be  given  consideration,  no  matter  how  small 
they  may  be.  The  smaller  interests  have  often  acted  with 
"Big  Business," — under  its  leadership,  but  as  industrial 
activities  and  destinies  are  more  and  more  transferred  to 
the  political  field,  the  smaller  capitalist  becomes  rather  a 
junior  partner  than  a  mere  follower.  Consolidation  and 
industrial  panics  have  taught  him  his  lesson,  and  he  is  at 
last  beginning  to  organize  and  to  demand  his  share  of  profits 
at  the  only  point  where  he  has  a  chance  to  get  it,  i.e.  through 
the  new  "State  Socialism."  Moreover,  he  is  going  to  have  a 
large  measure  of  success,  as  the  political  situation  in  this 
country  and  the  actual  experience  of  other  countries  show. 
And  in  proportion  as  the  relations  between  large  and  small 
business  become  more  cordial  and  better  organized,  they  may 
launch  this  government,  within  a  few  years,  into  the  capitalist 
undertakings  so  far-reaching  and  many-sided  that  the  half 
billion  expended  on  the  Panama  Canal  will  be  forgotten  as 
the  small  beginning  of  the  new  movement. 

It  is  true  that  for  the  moment  the  stupendous  wealth  and 
power  of  the  "Large  Interests,"  already  more  or  less  consoli- 
dated, threaten  to  overwhelm  the  rest.  Mr.  Steffens  does 
not  overstate  when  he  says :  — 

"To  state  correctly  in  billions  of  dollars  the  actual  value  of  all 
the  property  represented  in  this  community  of  interests,  might 
startle  the  imagination  to  some  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the  wealth 
of  these  men.  But  money  is  no  true  measure  of  power.  The  total 
capitalization  of  all  they  own  would  not  bring  home  to  us  the  in- 
fluence of  Morgan  and  his  associates,  direct  and  indirect,  honest 
and  corrupt,  over  presidents  and  Congresses ;  governors  and  legis- 
lators ;  in  both  political  parties  and  over  our  political  powers.  And 
no  figures  would  remind  us  of  their  standing  at  the  bar  and  in  the 
courts ;  with  the  press,  the  pulpit,  the  colleges,  schools,  and  in 
society.  And  even  if  all  their  property  and  all  their  power  could  be 
stated  in  exact  terms,  it  would  not  show  their  relative  wealth  and 
strength.  We  must  not  ask  how  much  they  have.  We  must  ask 
how  much  they  haven't  got."  (1) 

But  over  against  this  economic  power  the  small  capitalists, 
farmers,  shopkeepers,  landlords,  and  small  business  men,  have 
a  political  power  that  is  equally  overwhelming.  Until  the 
"trusts"  came  into  being,  no  issue  united  this  enormous 
mass.  Yet  they  are  still  capitalists,  and  what  they  want, 
except  the  few  who  still  dream  of  competing  with  the  "trusts," 
is  not  to  annihilate  the  latter's  power,  but  to  share  it.  The 


THE  NEW  CAPITALISM  21 

"trusts,"  on  the  other  hand,  are  seeing  that  common  action 
with  the  small  capitalists,  costly  as  it  may  be  economically, 
may  be  made  to  pay  enormously  on  the  political  field  by 
putting  into  the  hands  of  their  united  forces  all  the  powers 
of  governments. 

If  the  principle  of  economic  union  and  consolidation  has 
made  the  great  capitalists  so  strong,  what  will  be  the  result 
of  this  political  union  of  all  capitalists  ?  How  much  greater 
will  be  their  power  over  government,  courts,  politics,  the 
press,  the  pulpit,  and  the  schools  and  colleges  ! 

It  is  not  the  "trusts"  that  society  has  to  fear,  nor  the  con- 
solidation of  the  "trusts,"  but  the  organized  action  of  all 
"Interests,"  of  "Big  Business"  and  "Small Business,"  that  is, 
of  Capitalism. 

A  moment's  examination  will  show  that  there  is  every 
reason  to  expect  this  outcome.  Broadly  considered,  there 
is  no  such  disparity  between  large  capitalists  and  small, 
either  in  wealth  and  power,  as  at  first  appears.  All  the 
accounts  of  the  tendency  towards  monopoly  have  been 
written,  not  in  the  name  of  non-capitalists,  but  in  that  of 
small  capitalists.  Otherwise  we  might  see  that  these  two 
forces,  interwoven  in  interest  at  nearly  every  point,  are  also 
well  matched  and  likely  to  remain  so.  And  we  should  see 
also  that  it  is  inconceivable  that  they  will  long  escape  the 
law  of  social  evolution,  stronger  than  ever  to-day,  toward 
organization,  integration,  consolidation. 

Messrs.  Moody  and  Turner,  for  example,  finished  a  well- 
weighed  study  of  the  general  tendencies  of  large  capital  in 
this  country  with  the  following  conclusion :  — 

"Through  all  these  channels  and  hundreds  more,  the  central 
machine  of  capital  extends  its  control  over  the  United  States.  It 
is  not  definitely  organized  in  any  way.  But  common  interest 
makes  it  one  great  unit  —  the  'System,'  so  called. 

"It  sits  in  Wall  Street,  a  central  power,  directing  the  inevitable 
drift  of  great  industry  toward  monopoly.  And  as  the  industries 
one  after  another  come  into  it  for  control,  it  divides  the  wealth 
created  by  them.  To  the  producer,  steady  conditions  of  labor  ; 
to  the  investor,  stable  securities,  sure  of  paying  interest ;  to  the 
maker  of  monopolies  and  their  allies,  the  increment  of  wealth  of  the 
continent,  and  with  it  the  gathering  control  of  all  mechanical  industry." 
(2)  (My  italics.) 

Certainly  the  fundamental  social  questions  in  any  country 
at  any  time  are :  Who  gets  the  increment  of  wealth  ?  Who 


22  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

controls  industry?  No  objection  can  be  taken  to  the  facts 
or  reasoning  of  this  and  some  of  the  other  studies  of  the 
"trusts"  —  as  far  as  they  go.  What  vitiates  not  only  their 
conclusions,  but  the  whole  work,  is  that  written  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  small  capitalists,  they  forget  that  the 
"trusts"  are  only  part  of  a  larger  whole. 

The  increment  of  wealth  that  has  gone  to  large  capital 
in  this  country  in  the  census  period  1900-1910  is  certainly 
less  than  what  has  gone  to  small  capital.  Farm  lands  and 
buildings  have  increased  in  value  by  $18,000,000,000,  while 
the  increased  wealth  in  farm  animals,  crops,  and  machinery 
will  bring  the  total  far  above  $20,000,000,000.  The  increase 
in  city  lands  and  houses  other  than  owned  homes,  which  has 
not  been  less  than  that  of  the  country  in  recent  years,  must 
be  reckoned  at  many  billions,  and  these,  like  the  farm  lands, 
are  only  to  a  small  degree  in  the  hands  of  the  "Trusts." 
Even  allowing  for  the  more  modest  insurance  policies,  and 
savings  bank  accounts,  as  belonging  in  part  to  non-capitalists, 
small  capitalists  have  piled  up  many  new  billions  within  the 
same  decade,  in  the  form  of  bank  deposits,  good-sized  invest- 
ments in  insurance  companies,  in  government,  municipal, 
and  railway  bonds,  bank  stock,  and  other  securities.  No 
doubt  the  chief  owners  of  the  banks,  railways,  and  "trusts" 
have  increased  their  wealth  by  several  billions  within  the 
same  period,  but  this  is  only  a  fraction  of  the  increased  wealth 
of  the  smaller  capitalists.  It  is  not  true,  then,  that  "the 
increment  of  wealth  of  the  continent"  has  gone  to  —  "the 
makers  of  monopolies  and  their  allies." 

Let  us  now  examine  the  question  of  the  control  of  industry 
from  this  broader  standpoint.  It  is  admitted  that  the  direct 
control  of  the  "Interests"  extends  only  over  "mechanical 
industry"  —not  over  agriculture.  We  have  seen  that  it 
does  not  extend  over  the  mine  of  wealth  that  lies  in  city 
lands,  nor  over  large  masses  of  capital  more  and  more  ade- 
quately protected  by  the  government.  It  might  be  said 
that  by  their  strategic  position  in  industry  the  large  capital- 
ists control  indirectly  both  agriculture,  city  growth,  savings 
banks  and  government.  This  would  be  true  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  as  soon  as  we  turn  from  the  economic  to  the 
political  field  we  find  that  not  only  in  this  country,  but  also  in 
Europe  nearly  all  the  strategical  positions  are  held  by  the 
small  capitalists.  They  outnumber  the  large  capitalists  and 
their  retainers  ten  to  one,  and  they  hold  the  political  balance 


THE  NEW  CAPITALISM  23 

of  power  between  these  and  the  propertyless  classes.  The 
control  of  industry  and  the  control  of  government  being  in 
the  long  run  one  and  the  same,  the  only  course  left  to  the 
large  capitalists  is  to  compromise  with  the  small,  and  the 
common  organization  of  centralized  and  decentralized  cap- 
ital with  the  aid  and  protection  of  government  is  assured. 

The  fact  that,  for  the  masses  of  mankind,  capitalism  is  the 
enemy,  and  not  "Big  Business,"  is  then  obscured  by  the  war- 
fare of  the  small  capitalists  against  the  large.  Perhaps 
nowhere  in  the  world  and  at  no  time  in  history  has  this 
conflict  taken  on  a  more  definite  or  acute  form  than  it  has 
recently  in  this  country.  So  intense  is  the  campaign  of  the 
smaller  interests,  and  it  is  being  fought  along  such  broad  lines 
that  it  often  seems  to  be  directed  against  capitalism  itself. 
The  masses  of  the  people,  even  of  the  working  classes,  in 
America  and  Great  Britain  have  yet  no  conception  of  the 
real  war  against  capitalism,  as  carried  on  by  the  Socialists  of 
Continental  Europe,  and  it  seems  to  them  that  this  new  small 
capitalist  radicalism  amounts  practically  to  the  same  thing. 

The  "Insurgents,"  it  is  true,  differ  fundamentally  from  the 
Populists  of  ten  and  twenty  years  ago,  in  so  far  they  under- 
stand fully  that  in  many  fields  competition  cannot  be  re- 
stored, that  the  large  corporations  cannot  be  dissolved  into 
small  ones  and  must  be  regulated  or  owned  by  the  govern- 
ment, because  they  have  deserted  the  Jeffersonian  maxim 
that  "that  government  is  best  that  governs  least." 

"With  the  growing  complexity  of  our  social  and  business 
relations,"  says  La  Follette's  Weekly,  "a  great  extension  of 
governmental  functions  has  been  necessary.  The  authority 
of  State  and  nation  reaches  out  in  numberless  and  hitherto 
unknown  forms  affecting  and  regulating  our  daily  lives,  our 
occupations,  our  earning  power,  and  our  cost  of  living.  The 
need  for  this  intervention,  for  collective  action  by  the  people 
through  their  duly  constituted  government,  to  preserve  and 
promote  their  own  welfare,  is  a  need  that  is  growing  more 
and  more  important  and  imperative  to  meet  the  rapidly 
growing  power  of  commerce,  industry  and  finance,  centralized 
and  organized  in  the  hands  of  a  few  men." 

This  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  creed  of  capitalist 
collectivism.  The  analysis  of  the  present  political  situation 
of  the  Insurgents  is  not  only  collectivist,  but,  in  a  sense, 
revolutionary.  After  describing  how  "Big  Business,"  con- 
trols both  industry  and  politics,  La  Follette  says :  — 


24  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"This  thing  has  gone  on  and  on  in  city,  State,  and  nation, 
until  to-day  the  paramount  power  in  our  land  is  not  a  Democ- 
racy, not  a  Republic,  but  an  Autocracy  of  centralized,  sys- 
temized,  industrial  and  financial  power.  'Government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people '  has  perished 
from  the  earth  in  the  United  States  of  America." 

An  editorial  in  McClure's  Magazine  (July,  1911)  draws  a 
similar  picture  and  frankly  applies  the  term,  "State  Social- 
ism," to  the  great  reforms  that  are  pending :  — 

"Two  great  social  organizations  now  confront  each  other  in  the 
United  States  —  political  democracy  and  the  corporation.  Both 
are  yet  new,  —  developments,  in  their  present  form,  of  the  past  two 
hundred  years,  —  and  the  laws  of  neither  are  understood.  The 
entire  social  and  economic  history  of  the  world  is  now  shaping  itself 
around  the  struggle  for  dominance  between  them.  .  .  . 

"The  problem  presented  by  this  situation  is  the  most  difficult 
that  any  modern  nation  has  faced ;  and  the  odds,  up  to  the  present 
time,  have  all  been  with  the  corporations.  Property  settles  by 
economic  law  in  strong  hands ;  it  has  unlimited  rewards  for  service, 
and  the  greatest  power  in  the  world  —  the  power  of  food  and  drink, 
life  and  death  —  over  mankind.  Corporate  property  in  the  last 
twenty  years  has  been  welded  into  an  instrument  of  almost  infinite 
power,  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  very  few  and  very  able  men. 

"Sooner  or  later  the  so  far  unchecked  tendency  toward  monop- 
oly in  the  United  States  must  be  met  squarely  by  the  American 
people.  .  .  . 

"The  problem  of  the  relation  of  the  State  and  the  corporation 
is  now  the  chief  question  of  the  world.  In  Europe  the  State  is  rel- 
atively much  stronger;  in  America,  the  corporation.  In  Europe 
the  movement  towards  Socialism  —  collective  ownership  and  opera- 
tion of  the  machinery  of  industry  and  transportation  —  is  far  on  its 
way;  in  America  we  are  moving  to  control  the  corporation  by 
political  instruments,  such  as  State  Boards  and  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission.  .  .  . 

"And  if  corporate  centralization  of  power  continues  unchecked, 
what  is  the  next  great  popular  agitation  to  be  in  this  country  ?  For 
State  Socialism?" 

When  a  treaty  of  peace  is  made  between  "Big  Business"  and 
the  smaller  capitalists  under  such  leadership  as  La  Follette's, 
we  may  be  certain  that  it  will  not  amount  merely  to  a  swal- 
lowing up  of  the  small  fish  by  the  large.  The  struggle 
waged  according  to  La  Follette's  principles  is  not  a  mere 
bid  for  political  power  and  the  spoils  of  office,  but  a  real  polit- 
ical warfare  that  can  only  end  by  recognition  of  the  small 


THE  NEW  CAPITALISM  25 

capitalist's  claims  in  business  and  politics  —  in  so  far  as  they 
relate,  not  to  the  restoration  of  competition,  but  to  govern- 
ment ownership  or  control.  As  early  as  1905,  when  governor 
of  Wisconsin,  La  Follette  said :  — 

"It  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  contest  between 
the  State  and  the  corporate  powers  is  a  lasting  one.  ...  It 
must  always  be  remembered  that  their  attitude  throughout 
is  one  of  hostility  to  this  legislation,  and  that  if  their  relation 
to  the  law  after  it  is  enacted  is  to  be  judged  by  the  attitude 
towards  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law,  it  will  be  one  of 
continued  effort  to  destroy  its  efficiency  and  nullify  its  pro- 
vision." Events  have  shown  that  he  was  right  in  his  pre- 
dictions, and  his  idea  that  the  war  against  monopolies  must 
last  until  they  are  deprived  of  their  dominant  position  in 
politics  is  now  widely  accepted. 

The  leading  demands  of  the  small  capitalists,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  independently  organized  in  this  new  movement, 
are  now  for  protection,  as  buyers,  sellers,  investors,  borrowers, 
and  taxpayers  against  the  "trusts,"  railways,  and  banks. 
Formerly  they  invariably  took  up  the  cause  of  the  capitalist 
competitors  and  would-be  competitors  of  the  ""Interests"  — 
and  millionaires  and  corporations  of  the  second  magnitude 
were  lined  up  politically  with  the  small  capitalists,  as,  for 
example,  silver  mine  owners,  manufacturers  who  wanted 
free  raw  material,  cheaper  food  (with  lower  wages),  and  foreign 
markets  at  any  price, — from  pseudo-reciprocity  to  war, —  im- 
porting merchants,  competitors  of  the  trusts,  tobacco,  beer, 
and  liquor  interests  bent  on  decreasing  their  taxes,  etc. 

The  great  novelty  of  the  "Insurgent"  movement  is  that, 
in  dissociating  itself  from  Free  Silver,  Free  Trade,  and  the 
proposal  to  destroy  the  "trusts,"  it  has  succeeded  in  getting 
rid  of  nearly  all  the  "Interests"  that  have  wrecked  previous 
small  capitalist  movements.  At  the  same  time,  it  has  all 
but  abandoned  the  old  demagogic  talk  about  representing 
the  citizen  as  consumer  against  the  citizen  as  producer.  It 
frankly  avows  its  intention  to  protect  the  ultimate  consumer, 
not  against  small  capitalist  producers  (e.g.  its  opposition  to 
Canadian  reciprocity  and  cheaper  food),  but  solely  against 
the  monopolies.  Indeed,  the  protection  of  the  ultimate  con- 
sumer against  monopolies  is  clearly  made  incidental  to  the 
protection  of  the  small  capitalist  consumer-producer.  The 
wage  earner  consumes  few  products  of  the  Steel  Trust,  the 
farmer  and  small  manufacturers,  many.  Nor  does  the  new 


26  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

movement  propose  to  destroy  the  "trusts"  by  free  trade 
even  in  the  articles  they  produce,  but  merely  to  control 
prices  by  lower  tariffs.  With  the  abandonment  of  the  last 
of  the  "Interests"  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  "consumers" 
that  they  use  as  a  cloak,  the  new  movement  promises  for  the 
first  time  a  fairly  independent  and  lasting  political  organiza- 
tion of  the  smaller  capitalists. 

While  Senator  La  Follette  is  the  leading  general  of  the 
new  movement,  either  Ex-President  Roosevelt  or  Governor 
Woodrow  Wilson  seems  destined  to  become  its  leading  di- 
plomatist. While  Senator  La  Follette  declares  for  a  fight 
to  the  finish,  and  shows  that  he  knows  how  to  lead  and  organize 
such  a  fight,  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Wilson  are  giving  their 
attention  largely  to  peace  terms  to  be  demanded  of  the  enemy, 
and  the  diplomatic  attitude  to  be  assumed  in  the  negotiations. 
Perhaps  it  is  too  early  for  such  peaceful  thoughts,  and  pre- 
mature talk  of  this  kind  may  eliminate  these  leaders  as 
negotiators  satisfactory  to  the  small  capitalists.  Their 
interest  for  my  present  purpose  is  that  they  probably  fore- 
shadow the  attitude  that  will  finally  be  assumed  when  the 
large  "Interests"  see  that  they  must  make  terms. 

Mr.  Wilson's  language  is  at  times  so  conciliatory  as  to  create 
doubt  whether  or  not  he  will  stand  with  Senator  La  Follette 
and  the  Republican  "Insurgents"  for  the  whole  of  the  small 
capitalist's  program,  but  it  leaves  no  doubt  that,  if  he  lives 
up  to  his  declared  principles,  he  must  aim  at  the  government 
regulation,  not  of  "Big  Business"  merely,  but  of  all  business 
—  as  when  he  says  that  "business  is  no  longer  in  any  sense 
a  private  matter." 

"We  are  dealing,  in  our  present  discussion,"  he  said  in  an  ad- 
dress, delivered  in  December,  1910,  "with  business,  and  we  are  deal- 
ing with  life  as  an  organic  whole,  and  modern  politics  is  an  accom- 
modation of  these  two.  Suppose  we  define  business  as  economic 
service  of  society  for  private  profit,  and  suppose  we  define  politics 
as  the  accommodation  of  all  social  forces,  the  forces  of  biisiness,  of 
course,  included,  to  the  common  interest."  (My  italics.) 

It  is  evident  that  if  the  community  gains  by  an  extended 
control  over  business,  that  business  gains  at  least  as  much  by 
its  claim  to  be  recognized  as  a  public  service.  And  this 
Mr.  Wilson  makes  very  emphatic :  — 

"Business  must  be  looked  upon,  not  as  the  exploitation  of  society, 
not  as  its  use  for  private  ends,  but  as  its  sober  service ;  and  private 


THE  NEW  CAPITALISM  27 

profit  must  be  regarded  as  legitimate  only  when  it  is  in  fact  a  reward 
for  what  is  veritably  serviceable,  —  serviceable  to  interests  which 
are  not  single  but  common,  as  far  as  they  go ;  and  politics  must  be  the 
discovery  of  this  common  interest,  in  order  that  the  service  may  be 
tested  and  exacted. 

"In  this  acceptation,  society  is  the  senior  partner  in  all  business. 
It  first  must  be  considered,  —  society  as  a  whole,  in  its  permanent 
and  essential,  not  merely  in  its  temporary  and  superficial,  interests. 
//  private  profits  are  to  be  legitimatized,  private  fortunes  made  honor- 
able, these  great  forces  which  play  upon  the  modern  field  must,  both 
individually  and  collectively,  be  accommodated  to  a  common  pur- 
pose." (My  italics.) 

Business  is  no  longer  "to  be  looked  upon"  as  the  exploita- 
tion of  society,  private  profits  are  to  be  "legitimatized"  and 
private  fortunes  "made  honorable"  —  in  a  word,  the  whole 
business  world  is  to  be  regenerated  and  at  the  same  time 
rehabilitated.  This  is  to  be  accomplished,  as  Mr.  Wilson  ex- 
plained, in  a  later  speech  (April  13,  1911),  not  by  excluding 
the  large  capitalists  from  government,  but  by  including  the 
small,  and  this  will  undoubtedly  be  the  final  outcome.  He 
said :  — 

"The  men  who  understand  the  life  of  the  country  are  the  men  who 
are  on  the  make,  and  not  the  men  who  are  made ;  because  the  men 
who  are  on  the  make  are  in  contact  with  the  actual  conditions  of 
struggle,  and  those  are  the  conditions  of  life  for  the  nation ;  whereas, 
the  man  who  has  achieved,  who  is  at  the  head  of  a  great  body  of 
capital,  has  passed  the  period  of  struggle.  He  may  sympathize 
with  the  struggling  men,  but  he  is  not  one  of  them,  and  only  those 
who  struggle  can  comprehend  what  the  struggle  is.  I  would  rather 
take  the  interpretation  of  our  national  life  from  the  general  body 
of  the  people  than  from  those  who  have  made  conspicuous  successes 
of  their  lives." 

But  the  "Interests"  are  not  to  be  excluded  from  the  new 
dispensation. 

"I  know  a  great  many  men,"  Mr.  Wilson  says  further,  "whose 
names  stand  as  synonyms  of  the  unjust  power  of  wealth  and  of 
corporate  privileges  in  this  country,  and  I  want  to  say  to  you  that 
if  I  understand  the  character  of  these  men,  many  of  them  —  most  of 
them  —  are  just  as  honest  and  just  as  patriotic  as  I  claim  to  be.  But  I 
do  notice  this  difference  between  myself  and  them ;  I  have  not 
happened  to  be  immersed  in  the  kind  of  business  in  which  they  have 
been  immersed ;  I  have  not  been  saturated  by  the  prepossessions 
which  come  upon  men  situated  as  they  are,  and  I  claim  to  see  some 
things  that  they  do  not  yet  see ;  that  is  the  difference.  It  is  not  a 


28  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

difference  of  interest ;  it  is  not  a  difference  of  capacity;  it  is  not  a 
difference  of  patriotism.  It  is  a  difference  of  perception.  .  .  . 

"Now,  these  men- have  so  buried  their  minds  in  these  great  un- 
dertakings that  you  cannot  expect  them  to  have  reasonable  and 
rational  views  about  the  antipodes.  They  are  just  as  much  chained 
to  a  task,  as  if  the  task  were  little  instead  of  big.  Their  view  is  just 
as  much  limited  as  if  their  business  were  small  instead  of  colossal. 
But  they  are  awakening.  They  are  not  all  of  them  asleep,  and  when 
they  do  wake,  they  are  going  to  lend  us  the  assistance  of  truly  states- 
manlike minds. 

"We  are  not  fighting  property,"  Mr.  Wilson  continues,  "but 
the  wrong  conception  of  property.  It  seems  to  me  that  business  on 
the  great  scale  upon  which  it  is  now  conducted  is  the  service  of  the 
community,  and  the  profit  is  legitimate  only  in  proportion  as  the 
service  is  genuine.  I  utterly  deny  the  genuineness  of  any  profit 
which  is  gathered  together  without  regard  to  the  serviceability  of 
the  thing  done.  .  .  .  Men  have  got  to  learn  that  in  a  certain  sense, 
when  they  manage  great  corporations,  they  have  assumed  public  office, 
and  are  responsible  to  the  community  for  the  things  they  do.  That 
is  the  form  of  privilege  that  we  are  fighting."  (Italics  mine.)  (3) 

A  second  glance  at  these  passages  will  show  that  Mr.  Wilson 
speaks  in  the  name  rather  of  struggling  small  capitalists, 
business  men  "on  the  make,"  than  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 
His  diplomacy  is  largely  aimed  to  move  the  "honest"  large 
capitalists.  These  are  assured  that  the  only  form  of  privi- 
lege that  Mr.  Wilson,  representing  the  smaller  business  men, 
those  "on  the  make,"  is  attacking,  is  their  freedom  from  politi- 
cal and  government  control.  But  the  large  capitalists  need 
not  fear  such  control,  for  they  are  assured  that  they  them- 
selves will  be  part  of  the  new  government.  And  as  there  is 
no  fundamental  "difference  of  interests,"  the  new  govern- 
ment will  have  no  difficulty  in  representing  large  business  as 
well  as  small. 

No  better  example  could  be  found  of  the  foreshadowed 
treaty  between  the  large  interests  and  the  whole  body  of 
capitalists,  and  their  coming  consolidation,  than  the  central 
banking  association  project  now  before  Congress.  Originated 
by  the  "Interests"  it  was  again  and  again  moderated  to  avoid 
the  hostility  of  the  smaller  capitalists,  until  progressives  like 
Mr.  Wilson  are  evidently  getting  ready  to  propose  still  further 
modifications  that  will  make  it  entirely  acceptable  to  the 
latter  class.  Already  Mr.  Aldrich  has  consented  that  the 
"State"  banks,  which  represent  chiefly  the  smaller  capitalists, 
should  be  included  in  the  Reserve  Association,  and  that  the 


THE  NEW  CAPITALISM  29 

President  should  appoint  its  governor  and  deputy  governor. 
Doubtless  Congress  will  insist  on  a  still  greater  representa- 
tion of  the  government  on  the  central  board. 

Mr.  Wilson  emphasizes  the  need  of  action  in  this  direction 
in  the  name  of  "economic  freedom,"  which  can  only  mean 
equal  financial  facilities  and  the  indirect  loan  of  the  govern- 
ment's credit  to  all  capitalists,  through  means  of  a  govern- 
ment under  their  common  control :  — 

"The  great  monopoly  in  this  country  is  the  money  monopoly. 
So  long  as  that  exists,  our  old  variety  and  freedom  and  individual 
energy  of  development  are  out  of  the  question.  A  great  industrial 
nation  is  controlled  by  its  system  of  credit.  Our  system  of  credit  is 
concentrated.  The  growth  of  the  nation,  therefore,  and  all  our  activ- 
ities are  in  the  hands  of  a  few  men  who,  even  if  their  action  be  honest 
and  intended  for  the  public  interest,  are  necessarily  concentrated 
upon  the  great  undertakings  in  which  their  own  money  is  involved, 
and  who  necessarily  by  every  reason  of  their  own  limitations,  chill 
and  check  and  destroy  genuine  economic  freedom.  This  is  the 
greatest  question  of  all,  and  to  this  statesmen  must  address  them- 
selves with  an  earnest  determination  to  serve  the  long  future  and 
the  true  liberties  of  men."  (My  italics.) 

Undoubtedly  this  is  a  great  question;  the  establishment 
of  a  political  control  over  credit  will  mean  a  political  and 
financial  revolution.  For  it  will  establish  the  power  of  the 
government  over  our  whole  economic  system  and  will  lead 
rapidly  to  a  common  political  and  economic  organization 
of  all  classes  of  capitalists  for  the  control  of  the  government, 
to  a  compromise  between  the  group  of  capitalists  that  now 
rules  the  business  world  and  that  far  larger  group  which  is 
bound  to  rule  the  government.  The  financial  magnates 
have  seen  this  truth,  and,  as  Mr.  Paul  Warburg  said  to  the 
American  Association  (New  Orleans,  Nov.  21,  1911),  "Wall 
Street,  like  many  an  absolute  ruler  in  recent  years,  finds  it 
more  conducive  to  safety  and  contentment  to  forego  some  of 
its  prerogatives  .  .  .  and  to  turn  an  oligarchy  into  a  consti- 
tutional democratic  federation  [i.e.  a  federation  composed 
of  capitalists]." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  has  announced  a  policy  with  regard  to 
monopolies  that  foreshadows  even  more  distinctly  than  any- 
thing Mr.  Woodrow  Wilson  has  said  the  solution  of  the 
differences  between  large  and  small  capitalists.  He  urges 
that  a  government  commission  should  undertake  "super- 
vision, regulation,  and  control  of  these  great  corporations" 


30  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

even  to  the  point  of  controlling  "monopoly  prices"  and 
that  this  control  should  "indirectly  or  directly  extend  to 
dealing  with  all  questions  connected  with  their  treatment 
of  their  employees,  including  the  wages,  the  hours  of  labor, 
and  the  like."  (4) 

This  policy  is  in  entire  accord  with  the  declarations  of  An- 
drew Carnegie,  Daniel  Guggenheim,  Judge  Gary,  Samuel 
Untermeyer,  Attorney-General  Wickersham,  and  others  of 
the  large  capitalists  or  those  who  stand  close  to  them.  It  is 
in  equal  accord  with  the  declarations  of  La  Follette's  Weekly 
and  the  leading  "Insurgent"  writers. 

It  is  true  that  the  private  monopolies,  as  Mr.  Bryan 
pointed  out  (New  York  Times,  Nov.  19,  1911),  "will  soon  be 
in  national  politics  more  actively  than  now,  for  they  will 
feel  it  necessary  to  control  Colonel  Roosevelt's  suggested 
commission,  and  to  do  that  they  must  control  the  election  of 
those  who  appoint  the  commission." 

But  the  private  monopolies  will  soon  be  more  actively  in 
politics  no  matter  what  remedy  is  offered,  even  govern- 
ment ownership.  The  small  capitalist  investors,  shippers, 
and  consumers  of  trust  products  can  only  protect  themselves 
by  securing  control  of  the  government,  or  at  least  sharing  it 
on  equal  terms  with  the  large  capitalists. 

The  reason  that  Mr.  Roosevelt's  proposal  was  hailed  with 
equal  enthusiasm  by  the  more  far-sighted  capitalists,  whether 
radical  or  conservative,  small  or  large,  was  that  they  have  an 
approximately  equal  hope  of  controlling  the  government, 
or  sharing  in  its  control.  The  unbiased  observer  can  well 
conclude  that  they  are  likely  to  divide  this  control  between 
them  —  and,  indeed,  that  the  complete  victory  of  either 
party  is  economically  and  politically  unthinkable.  Already 
banks,  railways,  industrial  "trusts,"  mining  and  lumber 
interests,  are  being  forced  to  follow  a  policy  satisfactory  to 
small  capitalist  investors,  borrowers,  customers,  furnishers 
of  raw  material,  and  taxpayers  —  while  small  capitalist 
competitors  are  being  forced  to  abandon  their  effort  to  use 
the  government  to  restore  competition  and  destroy  the 
"trusts." 

In  the  reorganization  of  capitalism,  the  non-capitalists, 
the  wage  and  salary  earning  class  are  not  to  be  consulted. 
Taken  together  with  those  among  the  professional  and 
salaried  class  who  are  small  investors  or  expect  to  become 
independent  producers,  the  small  capitalists  constitute  a 


THE  NEW  CAPITALISM  31 

majority  of  the  electorate  (though  not  of  the  population), 
or  at  least  hold  the  political  balance  of  power.  It  is  capital- 
ist interests  alone  that  really  count  in  present-day  politics, 
and  it  is  for  capitalists  alone  that  government  control  would 
be  instituted. 

Viewed  in  this  light  the  statements  of  Mr.  Woodrow  Wilson 
that  "business  is  no  longer  hi  any  proper  sense  a  private 
matter,"  or  that  "our  program,  from  which  we  cannot  be 
turned  aside,  is,  that  we  are  going  to  take  possession  of  the 
control  of  our  own  economic  life,"  and  the  similar  state- 
ments of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  are  not  so  Socialistic  as  they  seem. 
What  their  use  by  the  leading  "conservative-progressive" 
statesmen  of  both  parties  means  is  that  a  partnership  of 
capital  and  government  is  at  hand. 


CHAPTER    III] 

THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM 

WE  are  told  that  the  political  issue  as  viewed  by  American 
radicals  is,  "Shall  property  rule,  or  shall  the  people  rule?" 
and  that  the  radicals  may  be  forced  entirely  over  to  the 
Socialist  position,  as  the  Republicans  were  forced  to  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Abolitionists  when  Lincoln  signed  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation.  Mr.  Ray  Stannard  Baker  notes  also 
that  capital  is  continually  the  aggressor,  as  were  the  slave- 
holders, and  that  the  conflict  is  likely  to  grow  more  and  more 
acute,  since  "no  one  imagines  that  these  powerful  men  of 
money  will  give  up  their  advantage  lightly"  any  more  than 
the  old  slaveholders  did. 

Another  "insurgent"  publicist  (  Mr.  William  Allen  White) 
says  that  the  aim  of  radicalism  in  the  United  States  is  "the 
regulation  and  control  of  capital"  and  that  the  American 
people  have  made  up  their  minds  that  "  capital,  the  product 
of  the  many,  is  to  be  operated  fundamentally  for  the  benefit 
of  the  many."  It  is  one  of  those  upheavals,  he  believes, 
which  come  along  once  in  a  century  or  so,  dethrone  privilege, 
organize  the  world  along  different  lines,  take  the  persons 
"at  the  apex  of  the  human  pyramid"  from  their  high  seats 
and  "iron  out  the  pyramid  into  a  plane."  (1) 

If  the  aim  of  the  "progressives"  is  the  overthrow  of  "the 
rule  of  property"  as  Mr.  Baker  claims  —  if,  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  White  again,  "America  is  joining  the  world  movement 
towards  equal  opportunity  for  all  men  in  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion," then  indeed  the  greatest  political  and  economic  struggle 
of  history,  the  final  conflict  between  capitalism  and  Social- 
ism, is  at  hand. 

But  when  we  ask  along  what  lines  this  great  war  for  a 
better  society  is  to  be  waged,  and  by  what  methods,  we  are 
told  that  the  parties  to  the  conflict  are  separated,  not  by  prac- 
tical economic  interests,  but  by  "ideas"  and  "ideals,"  and  that 
the  chief  means  by  which  this  social  revolution  is  to  be  accom- 
plished are  direct  legislation  and  the  recall  and  their  use  to 

32 


THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM        33 

extend  government  ownership  or  control  so  as  gradually 
to  close  one  door  after  another  upon  the  operations  of  capital 
until  its  power  for  harm  is  annihilated,  i.e.  democracy  and 
collectivism.  In  other  words,  the  militant  phrases  used  by 
Socialists  in  earnest  are  adopted  by  radicals  as  convenient 
and  popular  battle  cries  in  their  campaign  for  "State  Social- 
ism," as  to  banking,  railroads,  mines,  and  a  few  industrial 
"trusts,"  but  without  the  slightest  attempt  either  to  end 
the  "rule  of  property"  or  to  secure  "equal  opportunity" 
for  any  but  farmers  and  small  business  men.  They  do  noth- 
ing, moreover,  to  bring  about  the  new  political  and  class 
alignment  that  is  the  very  first  requirement,  if  the  rule  of 
property  in  all  its  forms  is  to  be  ended,  or  equal  opportunity 
secured  for  the  lower  as  well  as  the  comparatively  well-to-do 
middle  classes. 

Similarly  the  essential  or  practical  difference  between  the 
"Socialism"  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  editorial  associate,  Dr. 
Lyman  Abbott,  who  acknowledges  that  classes  exist  and  says 
that  capitalism  must  be  abolished,  and  the  Socialism  of  the 
international  movement  is  this,  that  Dr.  Abbott  expects 
to  work,  on  the  whole,  with  the  capitalists  who  are  to  be 
done  away  with,  while  Socialists  expect  to  work  against 
them. 

Dr.  Abbott  claims  that  the  "democratic  Socialism"  he  advocates 
is  directly  the  opposite  of  "State  Socialism  .  .  .  the  doctrine  of 
Bismarck,"  that  it  "aims  to  abolish  the  distinction  between  possess- 
ing and  nonpossessing  classes,"  that  our  present  industrial  institu- 
tions are  based  on  autocracy  and  inequality  instead  of  liberty,  democ- 
racy, and  equality,  that  under  the  wages  system  or  capitalism,  the 
laborers  or  wage  earners  are  practically  unable  to  earn  their  daily 
bread  "except  by  permission  of  the  capitalists  who  own  the  tools 
by  which  the  labor  must  be  carried  on."  He  then  proceeds  to  what 
would  be  regarded  by  many  as  a  thoroughly  Socialist  conclusion : 
"The  real  and  radical  remedy  for  the  evils  of  capitalism  is  the  or- 
ganization of  the  industrial  system  in  which  the  laborers  or  tool 
users  will  themselves  become  the  capitalists  or  tool  owners;  in 
which,  therefore,  the  class  distinction  which  exists  under  capitalism 
will  be  abolished."  (2) 

And  what  separates  the  advanced  "State  Socialism"  of 
Mr.  Hearst's  brilliant  editor,  Mr.  Arthur  Brisbane,  from  the 
Socialism  of  the  organized  Socialist  movement?  Has  not 
Mr.  Brisbane  hinted  repeatedly  at  a  possible  revolution  in 
the  future?  Has  he  not  insisted  that  the  crux  of  "the  cost 


34  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

of  living  question"  is  not  so  much  the  control  of  prices  by  the 
private  ownership  of  necessities  of  life  (as  some  "State 
Socialist"  reformers  say,  and  even  some  official  publications 
of  the  Socialist  Party) ,  as  the  exploitation  of  the  worker  at  the 
point  of  production,  the  fact  that  he  does  not  get  the  full 
product  of  his  labor  —  phrases  which  might  have  been  used 
by  Marx  himself  ? 

The  New  York  Evening  Journal  has  even  predicted  an 
increasing  conflict  of  economic  interests  on  the  political 
field  —  failing  to  state  only  that  the  people's  fight  must  be 
won  by  a  class  struggle,  a  movement  directed  against  capital- 
ism and  excluding  capitalists  (except  in  such  cases  where  they 
have  completely  abandoned  their  financial  interests). 

Asked  whether  the  influence  of  the  Interests  (the  "trusts") 
would  increase  or  diminish  in  this  country  in  the  near  future, 
the  Journal  answered :  — 

"The  influence  of  the  interests,  which  means  the  power  of  the 
trusts,  or  organized  industry  and  commerce,  will  go  forward  steadily 
without  interruption. 

"  Just  as  steadily  as  early  military  feudalism  advanced  and  grew, 
UNTIL  THE  PEOPLE  AT  LAST  CONTROLLED  IT  AND  OWNED  IT,  JUST 
so  STEADILY  WILL  TO-DAY'S  INDUSTRIAL  FEUDALISM  advance  and 
grow  without  interruption  UNTIL  THE  PEOPLE  CONTROL  IT  and  own 
it. 

"  The  trusts  are  destined  to  be  infinitely  more  powerful  than  now, 
infinitely  more  ably  organized. 

"  And  that  will  be  a  good  thing  in  the  long  run  for  the  people.  The 
trusts  are  the  people's  great  teachers,  proving  that  destructive, 
selfish,  unbrotherly  competition  is  unnecessary. 

"  They  are  proving  that  the  genius  of  man  can  free  a  nation  or  a 
world.  They  are  saying  to  the  people:  'You  work  under  our 
ORDERS.  One  power  can  own  and  manage  industry.' 

"  It  is  hard  for  individual  ambition  just  now.  But  in  time  THE 
PEOPLE  WILL  LEARN  THE  LESSON  AND  WILL  SAY  TO  THE  TRUST 
OWNERS  :  — 

; '  THANK  YOU  VERY  MUCH.  WE  HAVE  LEARNED  THE  LESSON. 
WE  SEE  THAT  IT  IS  POSSIBLE  FOR  ONE  POWER  TO  OWN  AND  CON- 
TROL ALL  INDUSTRY,  ALL  MANUFACTURES,  ALL  COMMERCE,  AND 
WE,  THE  PEOPLE,  WILL  BE  THAT  ONE  POWER.' 

"  Just  as  the  individual  feudal  lords  organized  their  little  armies 
in  France,  and  just  as  the  French  people  themselves  have  all  the 
armies  in  one  —  UNDER  THE  PEOPLE'S  POWER — so  the  industries 
organized  Now  by  the  barons  of  industrial  feudalism,  one  by  one, 
will  be  taken  and  put  together  by  the  people,  UNDER  THE  PEOPLE'S 
OWNERSHIP.  (3) 


THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM         35 

Yet  we  find  the  Journal,  like  all  the  vehicles  and  mouth- 
pieces of  radicalism,  other  than  those  of  the  Socialists,  un- 
ready to  take  the  first  step  necessary  in  any  conflict;  namely, 
to  decide  who  is  the  enemy.  Unless  defended  by  definite 
groups  in  the  community,  "the  rule  of  property,"  could  be 
ended  in  a  single  election.  Nor  can  the  group  that  maintains 
capitalist  government  consist,  as  radicals  suggest,  merely  of 
a  handful  of  large  capitalists,  nor  of  these  aided  by  certain 
cohorts  of  hired  political  mercenaries  —  nor  yet  of  these  two 
groups  supported  by  the  deceived  and  ignorant  among  the 
masses.  Unimportant  elections  may  be  fought  with  such 
support,  but  not  revolutionary  " civil  wars"  or  "the  upheavals 
of  the  centuries."  In  every  historical  instance  such  struggles 
were  supported  on  both  sides  by  powerful,  and  at  the  same  time 
numerically  important,  social  classes,  acting  on  the  solid  basis  of 
economic  interest. 

Yet  non-Socialist  reformers  persist  in  claiming  that  they 
represent  all  classes  with  the  exception  of  a  handful  of  mo- 
nopolists, the  bought,  and  the  ignorant;  and  many  assert 
flatly  that  their  movement  is  altruistic,  which  can  only  mean 
that  they  intend  to  bestow  such  benefits  as  they  think  proper 
on  some  social  class  that  they  expect  to  remain  powerless 
to  help  itself.  Here,  then,  in  the  attitude  of  non-Socialist 
reformers  towards  various  social  classes,  we  begin  to  see  the 
inner  structure  of  their  movement.  They  do  not  propose 
to  attack  any  "vested  interests"  except  those  of  the  financial 
magnates,  and  they  expect  the  lower  classes  to  remain  politi- 
cally impotent,  which  they  as  democrats,  know  means 
that  these  classes  are  only  going  to  receive  such  secondary 
consideration  as  the  interests  of  the  other  classes  require. 

Whether  the  radical  of  to-day,  the  "State  Socialist," 
favors  political  democracy  or  not,  depends  on  whether  these 
"passive  beneficiaries"  of  the  new  "altruistic"  system  are  in 
a  majority.  If  they  are  not  in  a  majority,  certain  political 
objects  may  be  gained  (without  giving  the  non-capitalist 
masses  any  real  power)  by  allowing  them  all  to  vote,  by  re- 
moving undemocratic  constitutional  restrictions,  and  by 
introducing  direct  legislation,  the  recall,  and  similar  measures. 
If  they  are  a  majority,  it  is  generally  agreed  that  it  is  unsafe 
to  allow  them  an  equal  voice  in  government,  as  they  almost 
universally  fail  to  rest  satisfied  with  the  benefits  they  secure 
from  collectivist  capitalism  and  press  on  immediately  to  a 
far  more  radical  policy. 


36  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

So  in  agricultural  communities  like  New  Zealand,  Aus- 
tralia, and  some  of  our  Western  States,  where  there  is  a 
prosperous  property-holding  majority,  the  most  complete 
political  democracy  has  come  to  prevail.  Judging  every- 
thing by  local  conditions,  the  progressive  small  capitalists 
of  our  West  sometimes  even  favor  the  extension  of  this 
democracy  to  the  nation  and  the  whole  world,  as  when  the 
Wisconsin  legislature  proposes  direct  legislation  and  the 
recall  in  our  national  government.  But  they  are  being 
warned  against  this  "extremist"  stand  by  conservative 
progressive  leaders  of  the  industrial  sections  like  Ex-President 
Roosevelt  or  Governor  Woodrow  Wilson. 

This  latter  type  of  progressive  not  only  opposes  the  exten- 
sion of  radical  democracy  to  districts  like  our  South  and 
East,  numerically  dominated  by  agricultural  or  industrial 
laborers,  but  often  wants  to  restrict  the  ballot  in  those  regions. 
Professor  E.  A.  Ross,  for  example,  writes  in  La  Follette's 
Weekly  that  "no  one  ought  to  be  given  the  ballot  unless  he 
can  give  proof  of  ability  to  read  and  write  the  English  lan- 
guage," which  would  disqualify  a  large  part,  if  not  the  major- 
ity, of  the  working  people  in  many  industrial  centers  ;  while 
Dr.  Abbott  concluded  a  lengthy  series  of  articles  with  the 
suggestion  that  the  Southern  States  have  "set  an  example 
which  it  would  be  well,  if  it  were  possible,  for  all  the 
States  to  follow." 

"Many  of  them  have  adopted  in  their  constitutions,"  Dr.  Ab- 
bott continues,  "a  qualified  suffrage.  The  qualifications  are  not 
the  same  in  all  the  States,  but  there  is  not  one  of  those  States  in 
which  every  man,  black  or  white,  has  not  a  legal  right  to  vote,  pro- 
vided he  can  read  and  write  the  English  language,  owns  three  hun- 
dred dollars'  worth  of  property,  and  has  paid  his  taxes.  A  provision 
that  no  man  should  vote  unless  he  has  intelligence  enough  to  read 
and  write,  thrift  enough  to  have  laid  up  three  hundred  dollars' 
worth  of  property,  and  patriotism  enough  to  have  paid  his  taxes, 
would  not  be  a  bad  provision  for  any  State  in  the  Union  to  incor- 
porate in  its  constitution."  (4) 

Such  a  provision  accompanied  by  the  customary  Southern 
poll  tax,  which,  Dr.  Abbott  overlooked  (evidently  inadvert- 
ently), would  add  several  million  more  white  workingmen 
to  the  millions  (colored  and  white)  that  are  already  without 
a  vote,  (a) 

(a)  In  his  enthusiasm  for  these  undemocratic  measures,  Dr.  Abbott  has  re- 
trogressed more  than  the  Southern  States,  which  do  not  require  both  a  prop- 


THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM        37 

We  cannot  wonder,  then,  that  the  working  people,  who  are 
enthusiastic  supporters  of  every  democratic  reform,  should 
nevertheless  distrust  the  democracy  of  the  new  movement. 
It  is  generally  supposed  in  the  United  States  that  the  reason 
the  new  "Insurgency"  is  weaker  in  the  East  than  in  the 
West  is  because  of  the  greater  ignorance  and  political  corrup- 
tion of  the  masses  of  the  great  cities  of  the  East.  But  when 
we  see  the  radicalism  of  the  West  also,  as  soon  as  it  enters 
the  towns,  tending  to  support  the  Socialists  and  Labor  parties 
rather  than  the  reformers,  we  realize  that  the  distrust  has 
no  such  local  cause. 

Perhaps  the  issue  is  more  clearly  seen  in  the  hostility  that 
exists  among  the  working  people  and  the  Socialists  towards 
the  so-called  commission  plan  of  city  government,  which  the 
progressives  unanimously  regard  as  a  sort  of  democratic 
municipal  panacea.  The  commission  plan  for  cities  vests 
the  whole  local  government  in  a  board  of  half  a  dozen  elected 
officials  subject  to  the  initiative  and  referendum  and  recall. 
The  Socialists  approve  of  the  last  feature.  They  object  to 
the  commission  and  stand  for  the  very  opposite  principle  of 
an  executive  subordinate  to  a  legislature  and  without  veto 
power,  because  a  board  does  not  permit  of  minority  represen- 
tation, and  because  it  allows  most  officials  to  be  appointed 
through  "influence"  instead  of  being  elected.  They  object 
also,  of  course,  to  the  high  percentages  usually  required  for 
the  initiative  and  the  recall.  It  is  Socialist  and  Labor  Union 
opposition,  and  not  merely  that  of  political  machines,  that  has 
defeated  the  proposed  plan  in  St.  Louis,  Jersey  City,  Hoboken, 
and  elsewhere,  and  promises  to  check  it  all  over  the  country. 
As  a  device  for  saving  the  taxpayer's  money,  the  commission 
plan  in  its  usual  form  is  ideal,  as  a  means  for  securing  the 
benefits  of  the  expenditure  of  this  money  to  the  non-propertied 
or  very  small  propertied  classes,  it  is  in  its  present  form 
worse  in  the  long  run  than  the  present  corruption  and  waste. 
State  legislatures  and  courts  already  protect  the  taxpayers 
from  any  measure  in  the  least  Socialistic,  whatever  form  of 

erty  and  educational  qualification,  but  only  one  of  the  two.  Moreover,  by  the 
"grandfather"  and  "understanding"  clauses  they  seek  to  exempt  as  many 
as  possible  of  the  whites,  i.e.  a  majority  of  the  population  in  most  of  these 
States,  from  any  substantial  qualification  whatever.  Nor  does  it  seem 
likely  that  even  in  the  future  they  will  apply  freely ;  against  the  poor  and 
illiterate  of  the  white  race,  the  measures  Dr.  Abbott  advocates.  Just  such 
restricted  suffrage  laws  were  repealed  in  many  Southern  States  from  1820 
to  1850,  and  it  is  not  Likely  that  the  present  reaction  will  go  back  that  far. 


38  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

local  government  and  whatever  party  may  prevail.  It  has 
caused  more  than  a  little  resentment  among  the  property- 
less  that  the  taxpayers  should  actually  have  the  effrontery 
to  propose  the  still  more  conservative  commission  plan  as 
being  a  radically  democratic  reform. 

It  is  on  such  substantial  grounds  that  the  propertyless 
distrust  the  democracy  of  the  progressives  and  radicals. 
They  find  it  extends  only  to  sections  or  districts  where  small 
capitalist  voters  are  in  a  majority.  The  "State  Socialist" 
and  Reform  attitude  towards  political  democracy  is  indeed 
essentially  opportunistic.  Not  only  does  it  vary  from  place 
to  place,  but  it  also  changes  rapidly  with  events.  As  long 
as  the  new  movement  is  in  its  early  stages,  it  deserves  popu- 
larity, owing  to  the  fact  that  it  brings  immediate  material 
benefits  to  all  and  paves  the  way,  either  for  capitalistic  or 
for  Socialistic  progress,  robs  capitalism  of  all  fear  of  the 
masses,  and  is  ready  to  remove  all  undemocratic  constitu- 
tional barriers  and  to  do  everything  it  can  to  advance 
popular  government.  These  constitutional  checks  and  bal- 
ances prevent  the  small  capitalists  and  their  progressive 
large  capitalist  allies  from  bringing  to  time  the  reactionaries 
of  the  latter  class,  while  they  are  so  many  that,  in  remov- 
ing a  few  of  them,  there  is  little  danger  of  that  pure  political 
democracy  which  would  alone  give  to  the  masses  any 
"dangerous"  power.  At  a  later  stage,  when  "State  Social- 
ism" will  have  carried  out  its  program,  and  the  masses  see 
that  it  is  ready  to  go  only  so  far  as  the  small  capitalists' 
interests  allow  and  no  farther,  and  when  it  will  already  have 
forced  recalcitrant  large  capitalists  to  terms,  and  so  have 
reunited  the  capitalist  class,  we  may  expect  to  see  a 
complete  reversal  of  the  present  semi-democratic  attitude. 
But  as  long  as  the  "State  Socialist"  program  is  still 
largely  ahead  of  us,  the  large  capitalists  not  yet  put  in- 
to their  place,  and  full  political  democracy  —  in  spite  of 
rapid  progress  —  still  far  in  the  distance,  a  radical  position 
as  to  this,  that,  or  the  other  piece  of  political  machinery 
signifies  little.  So  many  reforms  of  this  kind  are  needed 
before  political  democracy  can  become  effective  —  and  in 
the  meanwhile  many  things  can  happen  that  will  give  ample 
excuse  to  any  of  the  "progressive"  classes  that  decide  to 
reverse  their  present  more  or  less  democratic  attitude,  such 
as  an  "unpatriotic"  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  masses,  a 
grave  railroad  strike,  etc. 


THE   POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM         39 

For  there  will  be  abundant  time  before  democratic  machin- 
ery can  reach  that  point  in  its  evolution,  when  the  non- 
capitalist  masses  can  make  the  first  and  smallest  use  of  it 
against  their  small  and  large  capitalist  masters.  If,  for 
example,  the  Supreme  Court  of  this  country  should  ever 
be  made  elective,  or  by  any  other  means  be  shorn  of  its  polit- 
ical power,  and  if  then  the  President's  veto  were  abolished, 
and  others  of  his  powers  given  to  Congress,  there  would 
remain  still  other  alternatives  for  vetoing  the  execution  of 
the  people's  will  —  and  one  veto  is  sufficient  for  every  practi- 
cal purpose.  Even  if  the  senators  are  everywhere  directly 
elected,  the  Senate  may  still  remain  the  permanent  strong- 
hold of  capitalism  unless  overturned  by  a  political  revolu- 
tion. 

The  one  section  of  the  Constitution  that  is  not  subject  to 
amendment  is  the  allotment  of  two  senators  to  each  of  the 
States.     And  even  if  public  opinion  should  decide  that  this 
feature  must  be  made  changeable  by  ordinary  amendment 
like  the  rest,  it  might  require  90  or  even  95  per  cent  of  the 
people  to  pass  such  an  amendment  or  to  call  a  constitutional 
convention  for  the  purpose.     For  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island, 
Vermont,  Delaware,  are  not  only  governed  by  antiquated 
and  undemocratic  constitutions,  but  are  so  small  that  whole- 
sale bribery  or  a  system  of  public  doles  is  easily  possible. 
The  constitutions  of  the  mountain  States  are  more  modern, 
but  Utah,  Wyoming,  Nevada,  and  New  Mexico,  and  others 
of  these  States  are  so  little  populated  as  make  them  very  easy 
for  capitalist  manipulation,  as  present  political  conditions 
show.     Now  if  we  add  to  these  States  the  whole  South,  where 
the  upper  third  or  at  most  the  upper  half  of  the  population 
is  in  firm   control,   through    the    disfranchisement    of    the 
majority  of  the  non-capitalistic  classes  (white  and  colored), 
we  see  that,  even  if  the  country  were  swept  by  a  tide  of  demo- 
cratic opinion,  it  is  most  unlikely  that  it  will  ever  control 
the  Senate.     Moreover,  if  the  capitalists  (large  and  small) 
are  ever  in  danger  of  losing  the  Senate,  they  have  only  to 
annex  Mexico  to  add  half  a  dozen  or  a  dozen  new  States  with 
limited  franchises  and  undemocratic  constitutions. 

Either  the  President,  or  the  Senate,  or  the  Supreme  Court 
might  prove  quite  sufficient  to  prevent  the  execution  of  the 
will  of  the  people,  in  any  important  crisis  —  they  would  be 
especially  effective  when  revolutionary  changes  in  property, 
and  rapid  shifting  of  economic  and  political  power  into  the 


40  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

hands  of  the  people,  are  at  stake,  as  Socialists  believe  they 
will  be.  But  to  resist  such  a  movement,  still  another  political 
weapon  is  available,  —  even  if  President,  Senate,  and  Supreme 
Court  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  people  (and  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  small  capitalists,  who  themselves  suffer 
under  the  above-mentioned  constitutional  limitations,  will 
force  the  larger  capitalists  to  fall  back  on  this  other  weapon 
in  the  end),  —  namely,  a  limitation  of  the  suffrage. 

The  property  and  educational  qualifications  for  voting 
which  are  directed  against  the  colored  people  in  the  Southern 
States  are  being  used  to  a  considerable  degree,  both  North 
and  South,  against  the  poorer  whites.  While  there  is  no  like- 
lihood that  this  process  will  continue  indefinitely,  or  that  it 
will  spread  to  all  parts  of  the  country,  it  is  already  sufficient 
to  throw  the  balance  of  political  power  in  favor  of  the  capi- 
talists in  the  national  elections.  If  we  put  the  total  number 
of  voters  in  the  country  at  15,000,000,  we  can  see  how  signifi- 
cant is  the  fact  that  more  than  a  million,  black  and  white, 
have  already  been  directly  disfranchised  in  the  South  alone. 

In  view  of  these  numerous  methods  of  thwarting  democ- 
racy in  this  country  (and  there  are  others)  there  is  no  reason 
why  the  capitalists  should  not  permit  political  leaders  after 
a  time  to  accept  a  number  of  radical  and  even  revolutionary 
reforms  in  political  methods.  The  direct  election  of  senators, 
though  it  was  bitterly  opposed  a  few  years  ago,  is  already 
widely  accepted ;  the  direct  nomination  of  the  President  has 
become  the  law  in  several  States ;  Mr.  Roosevelt  threatens 
that  the  "entire  system"  may  have  to  be  changed,  that  con- 
stitutions may  be  "thrown  out  of  the  window,"  and  the 
power  of  judges  over  legislation  abolished,  which,  as  he  notes, 
has  already  been  advocated  by  the  Socialist  member  of 
Congress  (5) ;  the  Wisconsin  legislature  formally  calls  for  a 
national  constitutional  convention  and  proposes  to  make  the 
constitution  amendable  henceforth  by  the  "initiative"; 
Governor  Woodrow  Wilson  suggests  that  many  of  our  exist- 
ing evils  may  be  remedied  by  national  constitutional  amend- 
ments (6),  and  two  such  amendments  are  now  nearing  adop- 
tion after  forty  years,  during  which  it  was  thought  that  all 
amendment  had  ceased  indefinitely. 

Whether  it  will  be  decided  to  take  away  the  power  of  the 
Supreme  Court  over  legislation  and  make  it  directly  respon- 
sible to  Congress  or  the  people,  or  to  call  a  constitutional 
convention,  is  doubtful.  A  convention,  as  Senator  Heyburn 


THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM         41 

recently  pointed  out  in  the  Senate,  is  "bigger  than  the  Consti- 
tution" and  might  conceivably  amend  what  is  declared  in 
that  instrument  not  to  be  amendable,  by  providing  that  the 
States  should  be  represented  in  the  Senate  in  proportion  to 
population.  Even  then  the  existing  partial  disfranchisement  of 
the  electors  would  prevent  a  new  constitution  from  going  "too 
far"  in  a  democratic  direction.  It  is  also  true,  as  the  same 
senator  said,  that  the  habit  of  amending  the  Constitution  is 
a  dangerous  one  (to  capitalism),  and  that  it  might  some  day 
put  the  capitalistic  government's  life  at  stake  (7).  But  this 
after  all  amounts  only  to  saying  that  political  evolution,  like 
all  other  kinds,  is  cumulative,  and  that  its  tempo  is  in  the 
long  run  constantly  accelerated.  Certainly  each  change 
leads  to  more  change.  None  of  these  proposed  political 
reforms,  however,  even  a  constitutional  convention,  is  in 
itself  revolutionary,  or  promises  to  establish  even  a  political 
democracy.  All  could  coexist,  for  example,  with  a  still 
greater  restriction  of  the  suffrage. 

Nor  do  any  of  these  measures  in  themselves  constitute 
the  smallest  step  in  the  direction  of  political  democracy  as 
long  as  a  single  effective  check  is  allowed  to  remain.  If  there 
is  any  doubt  on  the  matter,  we  have  only  to  refer  to  other 
constitutions  than  ours  which  accomplish  the  same  object 
of  checkmating  democracy  without  a  Supreme  Court,  with- 
out an  absolute  executive  veto,  without  an  effective  second 
chamber,  and  in  one  important  case  without  a  written  con- 
stitution (England). 

Or,  we  can  turn  to  France,  Switzerland,  or  New  Zealand, 
where  the  suffrage  is  universal  and  political  democracy  is 
already  approximated  but  rendered  meaningless  to  the  non- 
capitalist  masses  by  the  existence  of  a  majority  composed 
of  small  capitalists.  And  in  countries  like  the  United  States, 
where  the  small  capitalists  and  their  immediate  dependents 
are  nearly  as  numerous  as  the  other  classes,  a  temporary  ma- 
jority may  also  be  formed  that  may  soon  make  full  democracy 
as  "safe"  for  a  considerable  period  as  it  is  in  Switzerland  or 
New  Zealand.  (6) 

(6)  Miss  Jessie  Wallace  Hughan  in  her  "American  Socialism  of  the  Present 
Day"  (page  184)  has  quoted  me  as  saying  (in  the  New  York  Call  of  Decem- 
ber 12,  1909)  that  the  amendability  of  the  Constitution  by  majority  vote  is 
a  demand  so  revolutionary  that  it  is  exclusively  Socialist  property.  Within 
the  limitations  of  a  very  brief  journalistic  article  I  believe  this  statement  was 
justified.  It  holdjs  for  the  United  States  to-day.  It  does  not  hold  for 
agrarian  countries  like  Australia,  Canada,  or  South  Africa,  for  backward 


42  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

As  soon  as  "State  Socialism"  reaches  its  point  of  most 
rapid  development,  and  as  long  as  it  continues  to  reach  ever 
new  classes  with  its  immediate  benefits,  it  will  doubtless 
receive  the  support  of  a  majority,  not  only  of  the  voters,  but 
also  of  the  whole  population.  During  this  period  the  "  Social- 
istic" capitalists  will  be  tempted  to  popularize  and  strengthen 
their  movement  not  only  by  uncompleted  political  reforms, 
that  are  abortive  and  futile  as  far  as  the  masses  are  concerned, 
but  also  by  the  most  thoroughgoing  democracy.  For  radi- 
cal democracy  will  not  only  be  without  danger,  but  useful 
and  invaluable  in  the  struggle  of  the  progressive  and  collec- 
tivist  capitalists  against  the  retrogressive  and  individualist 
capitalists.  As  long  as  there  is  a  majority  composed  of  large 
and  small  capitalists  and  their  dependents,  together  with 
those  of  the  salaried  and  professional  classes  who  are  satisfied 
with  the  capitalistic  kind  of  collectivism  (i.e.  while  its  progress 
is  most  brilliant),  it  is  only  necessary  for  the  progressives  to 
hold  the  balance  of  power  in  order  to  have  everything  their 
own  way  both  against  Socialism  and  reaction.  The  powerful 
Socialist  and  revolutionary  minority  created  in  industrial 
communities  by  equal  suffrage  and  a  democratic  form  of 
government,  as  long  as  it  remains  distinctly  a  minority,  is 
unable  to  injure  the  combined  forces  of  capitalism,  while  it 
furnishes  a  useful  and  invaluable  club  by  which  the  progres- 
sive capitalists  can  threaten  and  overwhelm  the  reactionaries. 

In  Great  Britain,  for  example,  the  new  collectivist  move- 
ment of  Messrs.  Churchill  and  Lloyd  George,  basing  itself 
primarily  on  the  support  of  the  small  capitalist  class,  which 
there  as  elsewhere  constitutes  a  very  large  part  (over  a  third) 
of  the  population,  seeks  also  the  support  of  a  part  of  the  non- 
propertied  classes.  It  cannot  make  them  any  plausible  or 
honest  promise  of  any  equitable  redistribution  of  income  or  of 
political  power,  but  it  can  promise  an  increase  of  well-paid 
government  employment,  and  it  can  guarantee  that  it  will 
develop  the  industrial  efficiency  of  all  classes  and  allow  them 
a  certain  share,  if  a  lesser  one,  in  the  benefits  of  this  policy. 

If  then  "State  Socialism,"  like  the  benevolent  despotisms 
and  oligarchies  of  history,  sometimes  offers  the  purely  ma- 

countries  like  Russia,  or  dependent  countries  like  Switzerland  or  Denmark, 
where  there  is  no  danger  of  Socialism.  And  before  it  can  be  put  into  effect, 
which  may  take  a  decade  or  more,  the  increased  proportion  in  the  population 
of  well-paid  government  employees  and  of  agricultural  lessees  of  government 
lands  and  similar  classes,  may  make  a  democratic  constitution  a  safe  capital- 
istic policy,  for  a  while,  even  in  the  United  States. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM         43 

terial  benefits  which  it  brings  in  some  measure  to  all  classes, 
as  a  substitute  for  democratic  government,  it  also  favors 
democracy  in  those  places  where  the  small  capitalists  and 
related  classes  form  a  majority  of  the  community.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  democratic  policy,  where  it  is  adopted,  is  to  stimu- 
late new  political  interest  in  the  "State  Socialistic"  pro- 
gram, and  by  increasing  cautiously  the  political  weight  of  the 
non-capitalists  —  without  going  far  enough  to  give  them  any 
real  or  independent  power  —  to  check  the  reactionary  ele- 
ment among  the  capitalists  that  tries  to  hold  back  the  indus- 
trial and  governmental  organization  the  progressives  have  in 
view.  It  was  in  order  to  shift  the  political  balance  of  power 
that  the  reactionary  Bismarck  introduced  universal  suffrage 
in  Germany,  and  the  same  motive  is  leading  Premier  Asquith, 
who  is  not  radical,  to  add  considerably  to  the  political  weight 
of  the  working  classes  in  England,  i.e.  not  to  the  point  where 
they  have  any  power  whatever  for  their  own  purposes,  but 
only  to  that  point  where  their  weight,  added  to  that  of  the 
Liberals,  counterbalances  the  Tories,  and  so  automatically 
aids  the  former  party. 

The  Liberals  are  giving  Labor  this  almost  valueless  install- 
ment of  democracy,  just  as  they  had  previously  granted 
instead  such  immediate  and  material  benefits  as  we  see  in  the 
recent  British  budgets,  as  if  they  were  concessions,  only  hiding 
the  fact  that  they  would  soon  have  conferred  these  benefits  on 
the  workers  through  their  own  self-interest,  whether  the  workers 
had  given  them  their  political  support  or  not. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  said :  — 

"The  workingman  is  no  fool.  He  knows  that  a  great  party  like 
ours  can,  with  his  help,  do  things  for  him  he  could  not  hope  to  ac- 
complish for  himself  without  its  aid.  It  brings  to  his  assistance  the 
potent  influences  drawn  from  the  great  middle  classes  of  this  coun- 
try, which  would  be  frightened  into  positive  hostility  by  a  purely 
class  organization  to  which  they  do  not  belong.  No  party  could 
ever  hope  for  success  in  this  country  which  does  not  win  the  con- 
fidence of  a  large  portion  of  this  middle  class.  .  .  . 

"You  are  not  going  to  make  Socialists  in  a  hurry  out  of  farmers 
and  traders  and  professional  men  of  this  country,  but  you  may  scare 
them  into  reaction.  .  .  .  They  are  helping  us  now  to  secure  ad- 
vanced Labor  legislation ;  they  will  help  us  later  to  secure  land 
reform  and  other  measures  for  all  classes  of  wealth  producers,  and 
we  need  all  the  help  they  give  us.  But  if  they  are  threatened  with 
a  class  war,  then  they  will  surely  sulk  and  harden  into  downright 
Toryism.  What  gain  will  that  be  for  Labor  ?  "  (My  italics.)  (8) 


44  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  here  bids  for  Labor's 
political  support  on  the  plea  that  what  he  was  doing  for  Labor 
meant  an  expense  and  not  a  profit  to  the  middle  class,  and 
that  these  reforms  would  only  be  assented  to  by  that  class  as 
the  necessary  price  of  the  Labor  vote.  I  have  shown  grounds 
for  believing  that  the  chief  motives  of  the  new  reforms  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Labor  vote.  However  much  Mr. 
Lloyd  George,  as  a  political  manager,  may  desire  to  control 
that  vote,  he  knows  he  can  do  without  it,  as  long  as  it  is 
cast  against  the  Tories.  The  Liberals  will  hold  the  balance 
of  power,  and  their  small  capitalist  followers  will  continue 
to  carry  out  their  capitalistic  progressive  and  collectivist 
program — even  without  a  Labor  alliance.  Nor  does  he  fear 
that  even  the  most  radical  of  reforms,  whether  economic  or 
political,  will  enable  Labor  to  seize  a  larger  share  of  the 
national  income  or  of  political  power.  On  the  contrary,  he 
predicted  in  1906  that  it  would  be  a  generation  before  Labor 
could  even  hope  to  be  sufficiently  united  to  take  the  first  step 
in  Socialism.  "  Does  any  one  believe,"  he  asked,  "that  with- 
in a  generation,  to  put  it  at  the  very  lowest,  we  are  likely 
to  see  in  power  a  party  pledged  forcibly  to  nationalize  land, 
railways,  mines,  quarries,  factories,  workshops,  warehouses, 
shops,  and  all  and  every  agency  for  the  production  and 
distribution  of  wealth  ?  I  say  again,  within  a  generation  ? 
He  who  entertains  such  hopes  must  indeed  be  a  sanguine 
and  simple-minded  Socialist."  (9) 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  sought  the  support  of  Labor  then,  not 
because  it  was  all-powerful,  but  because,  for  a  generation  at 
least,  it  seemed  doomed  to  impotence  —  except  as  an  aid 
to  the  Liberals.  The  logic  of  his  position  was  really  not  that 
Labor  ought  to  get  a  price  for  its  political  support,  but  that 
having  no  immediate  alternative,  being  unable  to  form  a  major- 
ity either  alone  or  with  any  other  element  than  the  Liberals, 
they  should  accept  gladly  anything  that  was  offered,  for 
example,  a  material  reform  like  his  Insurance  bill  —  even 
though  this  measure  is  at  bottom  and  in  the  long  run  purely 
capitalistic  in  its  tendency. 

And  this  is  practically  what  Labor  in  Great  Britain  has 
done.  It  has  supported  a  government  all  of  whose  acts 
strengthen  capitalism  in  its  new  collectivist  form,  both  eco- 
nomically and  politically.  And  even  if  some  day  an  isolated 
measure  should  be  found  to  prove  an  exception,  it  would  still 
remain  true  that  the  present  policies  considered  as  a  whole 


THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  NEW  CAPITALISM         45 

are  carrying  the  country  rapidly  and  uninterruptedly  in  the 
direction  of  State  Capitalism.  And  this  is  equally  true  of 
every  other  country,  whether  France,  Germany,  Australia, 
or  the  United  States,  where  the  new  reform  program  is  being 
put  into  execution. 

Many  "Socialistic"  capitalists,  however,  are  looking  for- 
ward to  a  time  when  through  complete  political  democracy 
they  can  secure  a  permanent  popular  majority  of  small 
capitalists  and  other  more  or  less  privileged  classes,  and  so 
build  their  new  society  on  a  more  solid  basis.  Let  us  assume 
that  the  railways,  mines,  and  the  leading  "trusts"  are  na- 
tionalized, public  utilities  municipalized,  and  the  national 
and  local  governments  busily  engaged  on  canals,  roads,  for- 
ests, deserts,  and  swamps.  Here  are  occupations  employing, 
let  us  say,  a  fourth  or  a  fifth  of  the  working  population;  and 
solvent  landowning  farmers,  their  numbers  kept  up  by  land 
reforms  and  scientific  farming  encouraged  by  government, 
may  continue  as  now  to  constitute  another  fifth.  We  can 
estimate  that  these  classes  together  with  those  among  the 
shopkeepers,  professional  elements,  etc.,  who  are  directly  de- 
pendent on  them  will  compose  40  to  50  per  cent  of  the  popu- 
lation, while  the  other  capitalists  and  their  direct  dependents 
account  for  another  10  per  cent  or  more.  Here  we  have  the 
possibility  of  a  privileged  majority,  the  logical  goal  of  "State 
Socialism,"  and  the  nightmare  of  every  democrat  for  whom 
democracy  is  anything  more  than  an  empty  political  reform. 
With  government  employees  and  capitalists  (large  and  small) 
—  and  their  direct  dependents,  forming  50  per  cent  or  more 
of  the  population,  and  supported  by  a  considerable  part  of 
the  skilled  manual  workers,  there  is  a  possibility  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  iron-bound  caste  society  solidly  intrenched  in 
majority  rule. 

There  are  strong  reasons,  which  I  shall  give  in  later  chap- 
ters, for  thinking  that  some  great  changes  may  take  place 
before  this  day  can  arrive. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"STATE  SOCIALISM"  AND  LABOR 

STATE  Capitalism  has  a  very  definite  principle  and  program 
of  labor  reform.  It  capitalizes  labor,  views  it  as  the  principal 
resource  and  asset  of  each  community  (or  of  the  class  that 
controls  the  community),  and  undertakes  every  measure  that 
is  not  too  costly  for  its  conservation,  utilization,  and  develop- 
ment —  i.e.  its  development  to  fill  those  positions  ordinarily 
known  as  labor,  but  not  such  development  as  might  enable 
the  laborers  or  their  children  to  compete  for  higher  social 
functions  on  equal  terms  with  the  children  of  the  upper  classes. 

On  the  one  hand  is  the  tendency,  not  very  advanced,  but 
unmistakable  and  almost  universal,  to  invest  larger  and 
larger  sums  for  the  scientific  development  of  industrial  effi- 
ciency —  healthy  surroundings  in  childhood,  good  food  and 
healthy  living  conditions,  industrial  education,  model  fac- 
tories, reasonable  hours,  time  and  opportunity  for  recreation 
and  rest,  and  on  the  other  a  rapidly  increasing  difficulty  for 
either  the  laborer  or  his  children  to  advance  to  other  social 
positions  and  functions  —  and  a  restriction  of  the  liberty  of 
laborers  and  of  labor  organizations,  lest  they  should  attempt  to 
establish  equality  of  opportunity  or  to  take  the  first  step  in 
that  direction  by  assuming  control  over  industry  and  govern- 
ment. From  the  moment  it  approaches  the  labor  question 
the  "Socialist"  part  of  "State  Socialism"  completely  falls 
away,  and  nothing  but  the  purest  collectivist  capitalism  re- 
mains. Even  the  plausible  contention  that  it  will  result  in  the 
maximum  efficiency  and  give  the  maximum  product  breaks 
down.  For  no  matter  how  much  the  condition  of  the  laborers 
is  improved,  or  what  political  rights  they  are  allowed  to  exer- 
cise, if  they  are  deprived  of  all  initiative  and  power  in  their 
employments,  and  of  the  equal  opportunity  to  develop  their 
capacities  to  fill  other  social  positions  for  which  they  may 
prove  to  be  more  fit  than  the  present  occupants,  then  the 
human  resources  of  the  community  are  not  only  left  under- 
developed, but  are  prevented  from  development. 

46 


47 

In  the  following  chapters  I  shall  deal  successively  with 
the  plans  of  the  "State  Socialists"  to  develop  the  productive 
powers  of  the  laboring  people  and  their  children  —  as  la- 
borers, together  with  the  accompanying  tendencies  towards 
compulsory  labor,  and  formation  of  a  class  society. 

"Our  Home  policy,"  says  a  manifesto  of  the  Fabian 
Society  (edited  by  Bernard  Shaw),  "must  include  a  labor 
policy,  whether  the  laborer  wants  it  or  not,  directed  to  secur- 
ing for  him,  what,  for  the  nation's  sake  even  the  poorest  of  its 
subjects  should  have."  (Italics  mine.)  (1) 

Here  is  the  basis  of  the  attitude  of  the  "State  Socialist" 
towards  labor.  Labor  is  to  be  given  more  and  more  atten- 
tion and  consideration.  But  the  governing  is  to  be  done  by 
other  classes,  and  the  foundation  of  the  new  policy  is  to  be 
the  welfare  of  society  as  these  other  classes  conceive  it,  — 
and  not  the  welfare  of  the  masses  of  the  people  as  conceived 
by  the  masses  themselves. 

Indeed,  a  government  official  has  recently  pleaded  with 
capital  in  the  name  of  labor  that  the  time  has  come  when  it 
pays  to  treat  labor  as  well  as  valuable  horses  and  cattle. 
George  H.  Webb,  Commissioner  of  Labor  of  Rhode  Island, 
begins  his  report  on  Welfare  Work  by  assuring  the  manu- 
facturers that  it  is  profitable.  He  says:  "Mankind,  at 
least  that  portion  of  it  that  has  to  do  with  horseflesh,  dis- 
covered ages  ago  that  a  horse  does  the  best  service  when  it  is 
well  fed,  well  stabled,  and  well  groomed.  The  same  prin- 
ciple applies  to  the  other  brands  of  farm  stock.  They  one 
and  all  yield  the  best  results  when  their  health  and  comforts 
are  best  looked  after.  It  is  strange,  though  these  truths 
have  been  a  matter  of  general  knowledge  for  centuries,  that 
it  is  only  quite  recently  that  it  has  been  discovered  that  the 
same  rule  is  applicable  to  the  human  race.  We  are  just 
beginning  to  learn  that  the  employer  who  gives  steady  em- 
ployment, pays  fair  wages,  and  pays  close  attention  to  the 
physical  health  and  comfort  of  his  employees  gets  the  best 
results  from  their  labor."  (2) 

Mr.  George  W.  Perkins,  recently  retired  from  the  firm  of 
J.  P.  Morgan  and  Company,  who  has  managed  the  intro- 
duction of  pensions,  profit  sharing,  and  other  investments 
in  labor  for  the  International  Harvester  Company,  has  also 
expressed  the  view  that  these  measures  were  profitable 
"  from  a  pecuniary  standpoint."  A  good  illustration  is  the  cal- 
culation of  the  Dayton  Cash  Register  Company,  which  has 


48  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

led  in  this  "welfare  work,"  that  "the  luncheons  given  each 
girl  costs  three  cents,  and  that  the  woman  does  five  cents  more 
of  work  each  day."  Some  such  calculation  will  apply  to  the 
whole  colossal  system  of  governmental  labor  reforms  now 
favored  so  widely  by  far-sighted  employers.  (3) 

In  order  that  the  private  policy  of  the  more  enlightened 
of  the  large  corporations  should  become  the  policy  of  govern- 
ments, which  employers  as  a  class  know  they  can  control, 
only  two  conditions  need  to  be  filled.  Since  all  employers 
must  to  some  degree  share  the  burdens  of  the  new  taxes 
needed  for  such  governmental  investments  in  the  improve- 
ment of  labor,  there  must  be  some  assurance,  first,  that  all 
capitalists  shall  share  in  the  opportunity  to  employ  this  more 
efficient  and  more  profitable  labor ;  and  second,  that  the 
supply  of  cheap  labor,  which  has  cost  almost  nothing  to 
produce,  is  either  exhausted  or,  on  account  of  its  in- 
efficiency, is  less  adapted  to  the  new  industry  than  it  was  to 
the  old.  The  impending  reorganization  of  governments 
to  protect  the  smaller  capitalists  from  the  large  (through 
better  control  over  the  banks,  railroads,  trusts,  tariffs,  and 
natural  resources)  will  furnish  the  first  condition,  the  natural 
exhaustion  or  artificial  restriction  of  immigration  now  immi- 
nent together  with  the  introduction  of  "scientific  manage- 
ment," the  second.  From  a  purely  business  standpoint  the 
greatest  asset  of  the  capitalists'  government,  its  chief  natural 
resource,  the  most  fruitful  field  for  conservation,  and  the 
most  profitable  place  for  the  investment  of  capital  will  then 
undoubtedly  be  in  the  labor  supply. 

In  presenting  the  British  Budget  of  1910  to  Parliament, 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  argued  that  the  higher  incomes  and  for- 
tunes ought  to  bear  a  greater  than  proportionate  share  of 
the  taxes,  because  present  governmental  expenditures  were 
largely  on  their  behalf,  and  because  the  new  labor  reforms 
were  equally  to  their  benefit. 

"What  is  it,"  he  said,  "that  enabled  the  fortunate  possessors 
of  these  incomes  and  these  fortunes  to  amass  the  wealth  they  enjoy 
or  bequeath?  The  security  insured  for  property  by  the  agency 
of  the  State,  the  guaranteed  immunity  from  the  risks  and  destruc- 
tion of  war,  insured  by  our  natural  advantages  and  our  defensive 
forces.  This  is  an  essential  element  even  now  in  the  credit  of  the 
country ;  and,  in  the  past,  it  means  that  we  were  accumulating  great 
wealth  in  this  land,  when  the  industrial  enterprises  of  less  fortunately 
situated  countries  were  not  merely  at  a  standstill,  but  their  resources 
were  being  ravaged  and  destroyed  by  the  havoc  of  war. 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"  AND  LABOR  49 

"What,  further,  is  accountable  for  this  growth  of  wealth?  The 
spread  of  intelligence  amongst  the  masses  of  the  people,  the  im- 
provements in  sanitation  and  in  the  general  condition  of  the  people. 
These  have  all  contributed  towards  the  efficiency  of  the  people,  even 
as  wealth-producing  machines.  Take,  for  instance,  such  legislation 
as  the  Educational  Acts  and  the  Public  Health  Acts ;  they  have  cost 
much  money,  but  they  have  made  infinitely  more.  That  is  true  of 
all  legislation  which  improves  the  conditions  of  life  for  the  people. 
An  educated,  well-fed,  well-clothed,  well-housed  people  invariably 
leads  to  the  growth  of  a  numerous  well-to-do  class.  If  property  were  to 
grudge  a  substantial  contribution  towards  proposals  which  insure 
the  security  which  is  one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  its  existence 
or  toward  keeping  from  poverty  and  privation  the  old  people  whose 
lives  of  industry  and  toil  have  either  created  that  wealth  or  made  it 
productive,  then  property  would  be  not  only  shabby,  but  short- 
sighted." (Italics  mine.)  (4) 

The  property  interests  should  be  far-sighted  enough  to 
support  the  present  economic  and  labor  reforms,  not  because 
there  is  any  fear  in  Great  Britain  either  from  a  revolutionary 
Socialist  movement  or  from  an  organized  political  or  labor 
union  upheaval,  for  Mr.  Lloyd  George  ridicules  both  these 
bogeys,  but  because  such  reforms  contribute  towards  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  people,  even  as  wealth-producing  machines  — 
and  increase  the  incomes  of  the  wealthy  and  the  well-to-do. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  continued :  — 

"We  have,  more  especially  during  the  last  60  years,  in  this  coun- 
try accumulated  wealth  to  an  extent  which  is  almost  unparalleled 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  but  we  have  done  it  at  an  appalling  waste 
of  human  material.  We  have  drawn  upon  the  robust  vitality  of  the 
rural  areas  of  Great  Britain,  and  especially  Ireland,  and  spent  its 
energies  recklessly  in  the  devitalizing  atmosphere  of  urban  factories 
and  workshops  as  if  the  supply  were  inexhaustible.  We  are  now 
beginning  to  realize  that  we  have  been  spending  our  capital,  at  a 
disastrous  rate,  and  it  is  time  we  should  take  a  real,  concerted, 
national  effort  to  replenish  it.  I  put  forward  this  proposal,  not  a 
very  extravagant  one,  as  a  beginning."  (My  italics.)  (5) 

In  order  to  do  away  with  the  economic  waste  of  profitable 
"human  material"  and  the  still  more  serious  exhaustion  of 
the  supply,  the  propertyless  wage  earner  or  salaried  man  for 
the  first  time  obtains  a  definite  status  in  the  official  political 
economy;  he  becomes  the  property  of  the  nation  viewed 
"as  a  business  firm,"  a  part  of  "our"  capital.  His  position 
was  much  like  a  peasant  or  a  laborer  during  the  formation 
of  the  feudal  system.  To  obtain  any  status  at  all,  to  become 


50  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

half  free  he  had  to  become  somebody's  "  man."  Now  he  is 
the  "man,"  the  industrial  asset,  of  the  government.  This 
paternal  attitude  towards  the  individual,  however,  is  not  at 
all  similar  to  the  paternalist  attitude  towards  capital.  While 
the  individual  capitalist  often  does  not  object  to  having  his 
capital  reckoned  as  a  part  of  the  resources  of  a  government 
which  capitalists  as  a  class  control,  —  roughly  speaking  in 
proportion  to  their  wealth,  —  we  can  picture  his  protests  if 
either  his  personal  activity  or  ability  or  his  private  income 
were  similarly  viewed  as  dependent  for  their  free  use  and 
development  on  the  benevolent  patronage  of  the  State. 
However,  for  the  workers  to  become  an  asset  of  the  State, 
even  while  the  latter  is  still  viewed  primarily  as  a  commer- 
cial institution  and  remains  in  the  hands  of  the  business 
class,  is  undoubtedly  a  revolutionary  advance. 

Mr.  Winston  Churchill  also  gives,  as  the  basis  for  the  whole 
program,  the  need  of  putting  an  end  to  that  "waste  of  earn- 
ing power"  and  of  "the  stamina,  the  virtue,  safety,  and 
honor  of  the  British  race,"  that  is  due  to  existing  poverty 
and  economic  maladjustment.  (6)  Mr.  John  A.  Hobson, 
a  prominent  economist  and  radical,  shows  that  the  purpose 
of  the  "New  Liberalism"  is  the  full  development  of  "the 
productive  resources  of  our  land  and  labor,"  (7)  and  denies 
that  this  broad  purpose  has  anything  to  do  with  Socialist 
collectivism. 

,  Professor  Simon  Patten  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 
writes  very  truly  about  the  proposed  labor  reforms,  that  "they 
can  cause  poverty  to  disappear  and  can  give  a  secure  income 
to  every  family,"  without  requiring  any  sacrifice  on  the  part 
of  the  possessing  classes.  No  one  has  shown  more  clearly 
or  in  fewer  words  how  intimately  connected  are  the  advance 
of  the  worker  and  the  further  increase  of  profits.  "Social 
improvement,"  Professor  Patten  says,  "takes  him  [the  work- 
man] from  places  where  poverty  and  diseases  oppress,  and 
introduce  him  to  the  full  advantage  of  a  better  position.  .  .  . 
It  gives  to  the  city  workman  the  air,  light,  and  water  that  the 
country  workman  has,  but  without  his  inefficiency  and  iso- 
lation. It  gives  more  working  years  and  more  working  days 
in  each  year,  with  more  zeal  and  vitality  in  each  working 
day ;  health  makes  work  pleasant,  and  pleasant  work  becomes 
efficiency  when  the  environment  stimulates  men's  powers 
to  the  full.  .  .  .  The  unskilled  workman  must  be  trans- 
formed into  an  efficient  citizen ;  children  must  be  kept  from 


"STATE   SOCIALISM"  AND  LABOR  51 

work,  and  women  must  have  shorter  hours  and  better  condi- 
tions." (8) 

Professor  Patten  has  even  drawn  up  a  complete  scientific 
program  of  social  reforms  which  lead  necessarily  to  the  eco- 
nomic advantage  of  all  elements  in  a  community  without  any 
decrease  of  the  existing  inequalities  of  wealth.  "The  in- 
comes and  personal  efforts  of  those  favorably  situated," 
says  Professor  Patten,  "can  reduce  the  evils  of  poverty  with- 
out the  destruction  of  that  upon  which  their  wealth  and  the 
progress  of  society  depend."  (Italics  mine.) 

The  reform  program  begins  with  childhood  and  extends 
over  every  period  of  the  worker's  life.  Ex-President  Eliot 
of  Harvard  and  President  Hadley  of  Yale  and  other  leading 
educators  propose  that  its  principles  be  applied  to  the  nation's 
children.  Dr.  Eliot  insists  that  greater  emphasis  should  be 
laid  on  vocational  and  physical  training  and  the  teaching  of 
hygiene  and  the  preservation  of  the  health,  which  will 
secure  the  approval  of  every  "State  Socialist."  Anything 
that  can  be  done  to  elevate  the  health  of  the  nation,  and  to 
increase  its  industrial  efficiency  by  the  teaching  of  trades, 
will  pay  the  nation,  considered  as  a  going  concern,  a  business 
undertaking  of  all  its  capitalists.  It  might  not  improve  the 
opportunity  of  the  wage  earners  to  rise  to  better-paid  posi- 
tions, because  it  would  augment  competition  among  skilled 
laborers ;  while  it  would  probably  improve  wages  somewhat, 
it  might  not  advance  them  proportionately  to  the  general 
increase  of  wealth ;  it  might  leave  the  unequal  distribution 
of  wealth,  political  power,  and  opportunity  even  more  un- 
equal than  they  are  to-day,  but  as  long  as  the  nation  as  a 
whole  is  richer  and  the  masses  of  the  people  better  off,  "State 
Socialists"  will  apparently  be  satisfied. 

President  Hadley  is  even  more  definite  than  Dr.  Eliot. 
The  new  educational  policy  so  thoroughly  in  accord  with  the 
interests  of  the  business  and  capitalist  classes  demands  "for 
the  people"  every  opportunity  in  education  that  will  make  the 
individual  a  better  worker,  while  it  allows  his  development  as 
a  man  and  a  citizen  to  take  care  of  itself.  President  Hadley 
urges  that  we  follow  along  German  lines  in  public  education. 
What  he  feels  we  still  lack,  and  ought  to  take  from  Germany, 
are  the  "industrial  training  and  the  military  training  of  the 
people":  the  children  are  forced  to  go  to  the  elementary 
schools  for  a  time,  and  during  that  part  of  their  education 
they  are  kept  out  of  the  shops  and  the  factories.  They, 


52  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

however,  receive  instructions  in  the  rudiments  of  shop  and 
factory  work."  (9)  In  other  words,  the  children  are  kept  out 
of  the  factory,  but  the  shop  and  the  factory  are  permitted 
to  enter  the  school.  Doubtless  an  improvement,  but  not 
yet  the  sort  of  education  any  business  or  professional  man 
would  desire  for  his  own  children  at  twelve,  fourteen,  or 
sixteen  years  of  age.  (a) 

"State  Socialism"  looks  at  the  individual,  and  especially 
the  workingman,  almost  wholly  from  the  standpoint  of 
what  the  community,  as  at  present  organized,  the  capitalists 
being  the  chief  shareholders,  is  able  to  make  out  of  him. 
Each  newborn  child  represents  so  much  cost  to  the  community 
for  his  education.  If  he  dies,  the  community  loses  so  and  so 
much.  If  he  lives,  he  brings  during  his  life  such  and  such  a 
sum  to  the  community,  and  it  is  worth  while  to  spend  a 
considerable  amount  both  to  prevent  his  early  death  or 
disablement  and  to  increase  his  industrial  efficiency  while 
he  lives.  According  to  this  view,  Professor  Irving  Fisher 
of  Yale  has  calculated  that  the  annual  child  crop  in  the 
United  States  is  worth  about  seven  billion  dollars  per  annum, 
a  sum  almost  equal  to  the  annual  value  of  our  agricultural 
crops.  In  both  cases  great  economies  are  possible.  Pro- 
fessor Fisher  has  estimated  that  47  per  cent  of  the  children 
who  die  in  America  less  than  five  years  old  could  be  saved 
at  an  average  cost  of  $20  per  child,  which  means  an  annual 
loss  to  the  nation  of  $576,000,000,  according  to  Professor 
Fisher's  calculation  of  what  would  have  been  the  future 


(°)  A  more  democratic  and  truthful  view  of  the  German  educational  system 
is  that  of  Dr.  Abraham  Flexner  (see  the  New  York  Times,  October  1,  1911). 
He  says  that  the  Germans  have  to  solve  the  following  kind  of  an  educational 
problem :  — 

"What  sort  of  educational  program  can  we  devise  that  will  subserve 
all  the  various  national  policies  —  that  will  enable  Germany  to  be  a  great 
scientific  nation,  that  will  enable  it  to  carry  on  an  aggressive  colonial  and 
industrial  policy,  and  yet  not  throw  us  into  the  arms  of  democracy  ?  Their 
present  educational  system  is  their  highly  effective  reply. 

"Our  problem  is  a  very  different  one,"  Dr.  Flexner  remarks.  "Our historic 
educational  problem  has  been  and  is  quite  independent  of  any  position  we 
might  be  able  to  achieve  in  the  world.  That  problem  has  always  been: 
How  can  we  frame  conditions  in  which  individuals  can  realize  the  best  that 
is  in  them  ?" 

Dr.  Flexner  is  then  reported  to  have  quoted  the  following  from  a  Spring- 
field Republican  editorial :  — 

"Germany  could  readily  train  her  masses  with  a  view  to  industrial  effi- 
ciency, whereas  our  industrial  efficiency  is  only  one  of  the  efficiencies  we 
care  about ;  the  American  wishes  to  develop  in  many  other  ways,  and  to 
have  his  educational  system  help  him  to  do  it." 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"  AND  LABOR  53 

value  of  all  the  children  now  lost  (above  their  cost  of  main- 
tenance). 

"We  have  counted  it  our  good  fortune,"  says  Professor  Fisher, 
"  to  dwell  in  a  land  where  nature  has  been  so  prodigal  that  we  have 
not  needed  to  fear  want.  We  are  only  beginning  to  realize  that 
this  very  prodigality  of  nature  has  produced  a  spirit  of  prodigality 
in  men. 

"  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  conservation  movement  to  rebuke  and 
correct  this  national  trait,  and  the  resources  of  science  are  now 
concentrated  in  this  mighty  effort  in  that  direction. 

"The  conservation  of  human  life  will,  I  believe,  constitute  the 
grandest  movement  of  the  twentieth  century. 

"Not  only  do  human  beings  constitute  by  far  the  greatest  part 
of  our  natural  resources,  but  the  waste  of  human  life  and  strength 
is  by  far  the  greatest  of  all  wastes.  In  the  report  of  President 
Roosevelt's  conservation  commission,  although  his  commission  was 
primarily  appointed  to  conserve  our  natural  rather  than  our  vital 
resources,  it  was  pointed  out  that  human  beings,  considered  as 
capitalized  working  power,  are  worth  three  to  five  times  all  our  other 
capital,  and  that,  even  on  a  very  moderate  estimate,  the  total 
waste  and  unnecessary  loss  of  our  national  vitality  amounts  to  one 
and  one  half  billions  of  dollars  per  year."  (10) 

When  the  "State  Socialist"  policy  has  taken  possession  of 
the  world,  which  may  be  in  the  very  near  future,  or,  more 
correctly  speaking,  when  the  world's  business  and  politics 
are  so  organized  as  to  give  this  policy  a  chance  for  a  full  and 
free  application,  is  it  not  evident  that  every  advanced  nation 
will  consider  it  as  being  to  its  business  interest  to  put  an  end 
to  this  vast,  unnecessary  loss  of  life?  And  if  half  a  billion 
a  year  is  lost  through  unnecessary  deaths  of  very  young 
children,  is  it  not  probable  that  an  equal  sum  is  lost  through 
death  later  in  childhood  or  early  youth,  another  similar  sum 
through  underfeeding  in  later  life,  or  through  lack  of  sufficient 
exercise,  rest,  recreation,  and  outdoor  life,  and  a  far  larger 
amount  through  lack  of  industrial  training?  Is  it  not  cer- 
tain that  unnecessary  industrial  accidents,  sickness  due  to 
overwork  and  early  old  age  due  to  overstrain,  are  responsible 
for  another  enormous  loss?  And,  finally,  is  not  unemploy- 
ment costing  a  billion  a  year  to  the  "nation,  considered  as  a 
business  firm"?  This  last-named  loss  has  been  calculated, 
for  the  United  States  alone,  as  1,300,000  years  of  labor  time 
annually.  If  a  round  million  of  these  years  are  saved  — 
if  we  estimate  their  value  in  profits  at  the  low  figure  of  $1000 


54  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

each, —  we  have  another  billion  (even  allowing  for  300,000 
unemployable).  (11) 

Is  it  not  clear  that  nearly  every  element  in  the  community 
will  soon  combine  to  do  all  that  is  humanly  possible  to  put 
an  end  to  such  costly  abuses  and  neglect ;  and  that  conscien- 
tious and  wholesale  efforts  to  preserve  the  public  health  and 
to  secure  industrial  efficiency  cannot  be  a  matter  of  the  dis- 
tant future,  when  movements  in  that  direction  have  already 
been  initiated  in  Great  Britain,  Australia,  Germany,  and 
some  other  countries?  Sir  Joseph  Ward,  Premier  of  New 
Zealand,  says  that  the  people  of  that  country  have  already 
calculated  the  value  of  each  child  —  and,  on  this  basis,  made 
it  the  subject  of  certain  governmental  investments.  He 
says :  — 

"To  return  to  the  annuity  fund,  apart  from  the  assistance  it  gives 
to  the  wife  and  children  if  the  father  is  sick,  it  also  contributes  the 
services  of  a  medical  man  for  a  woman  at  childbirth,  and  the  State 
pays  $30  for  that  purpose.  If  all  of  this  is  not  needed  to  pay  the 
physician,  the  rest  may  be  used  for  carrying  on  the  home.  This  has 
all  been  done  with  the  view  to  helping  the  birth  rate  and  bringing 
into  the  world  children  under  the  most  healthy  conditions  possible, 
so  that  they  may  have  a  free  chance  of  attaining  man's  or  woman's 
estate. 

"We  assess  the  value  of  an  adult  in  our  country  as  $1500.  So, 
from  a  business  standpoint  and  on  national  grounds,  we  regard  the 
expenditure  of  a  sum  up  to  $30  as  judicious,  when  the  value  of  the 
infant  to  the  country  may  be  fifty  times  that  sum.  Thus  the  small 
wage  earner's  wife  and  children  are  provided  for,  and  his  fear  about 
being  able  to  provide  for  a  large  family  is  decreased."  (Italics 
mine.)  (12) 

"I  am  of  the  opinion,"  declares  Mr.  Churchill,  "that  the 
State  should  increasingly  assume  the  position  of  the  reserve 
employer  of  labor,"  and  that  "the  State  must  increasingly 
and  earnestly  concern  itself  with  the  care  of  the  sick  and 
aged,  and,  above  all,  of  the  children."  He  looks  forward 
"to  the  universal  establishment  of  the  minimum  standards 
of  life  and  labor,  and  their  progressive  elevation  as  the  in- 
creasing energies  of  production  may  permit."  (13) 

Mr.  Churchill  rejects  the  supposition  that  the  govern- 
ment intends  to  stop  with  the  extension  of  the  eight-hour 
law  to  miners.  "I  welcome  and  support  this  measure,  not 
only  for  its  own  sake,"  he  said,  "but  more  because  it  is,  I 
believe,  simply  the  precursor  of  the  general  movement  which 


"STATE  SOCIALISM::  AND  LABOR  55 

is  in  progress,  all  over  the  world,  and  in  other  industries 
besides  this,  towards  reconciling  the  conditions  of  labor 
with  the  well-ascertained  laws  of  science  and  health."  (14) 

It  might  be  supposed  that  this  measure  would  prove 
costly  to  employers,  but  this  is  only  a  short-sighted  view. 
In  the  first  place,  working  for  less  hours,  the  miners  will 
produce  somewhat  more  per  hour,  but  an  even  more  impor- 
tant ultimate  benefit  comes  from  the  fact  that  the  most 
experienced  miners,  those  who  are  most  profitable,  being 
subject  to  less  overstrain,  will  have  a  longer  working 
life. 

Another  measure  already  enacted  towards  establishing  "a 
national  minimum"  applies  to  the  wages  in  ready-made 
tailoring  and  some  less  important  industries,  to  which  shirt- 
waist making  is  soon  to  be  added.  These  are  known  as  the 
"sweated"  trades,  "where  the  feebleness  and  ignorance  of 
the  workers  and  their  isolation  from  each  other  render  them 
an  easy  prey  to  the  tyranny  of  bad  masters  and  middlemen 
one  step  above  them  upon  the  lowest  rungs  of  the  ladder,  and 
themselves  held  in  the  grip  of  the  same  relentless  forces," 
—  where  "you  have  a  condition  not  of  progress  but  of  pro- 
gressive degeneration."  Mr.  Churchill  asked  Parliament 
to  regard  these  industries  as  "sick  and  diseased,"  and  "to 
deal  with  them  in  exactly  the  same  mood  and  temper  as 
we  should  deal  with  sick  people,"  and  accordingly  boards 
were  established  for  the  purpose  of  setting  up  a  minimum 
wage.  (15) 

But  if  employers  are  forced  to  pay  higher  wages,  it  may 
be  thought  that  they  will  lose  from  the  law.  This  Mr. 
Churchill  effectively  denies. 

"In  most  instances,"  he  says,  "the  best  employers  in  the  trade 
are  already  paying  wages  equal  or  superior  to  the  probable  minimum 
which  the  Trade  Board  will  establish.  The  inquiries  I  have  set  on 
foot  in  the  various  trades  scheduled  have  brought  to  me  most  satis- 
factory assurances  from  nearly  all  the  employers  to  whom  my  in- 
vestigations have  addressed  themselves.  .  .  .  But  most  of  all  I 
have  put  my  faith  in  the  practical  effect  of  a  powerful  band  of  em- 
ployers, perhaps  a  majority,  who,  whether  from  high  motives  or  self- 
interest,  or  from  a  combination  of  the  two  —  they  are  not  necessarily 
incompatible  ideas  —  will  form  a  vigilant  and  instructed  police, 
knowing  every  turn  and  twist  of  the  trade,  and  who  will  labor  con- 
stantly to  protect  themselves  from  being  undercut  by  the  illegal 
'competition  of  unscrupulous  rivals." 


56  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Mr.  Churchill  claims  that  employers  who  are  trying  to  pur- 
sue such  trades  with  modern  machinery  and  modern  methods 
are  more  seriously  hampered  by  the  competition  of  the 
"sweaters"  than  they  are  by  that  of  foreign  employers. 
"I  cannot  believe,"  he  concludes,  "that  the  process  of  rais- 
ing the  degenerate  and  parasitical  portion  of  these  trades  up 
to  the  level  of  the  most  efficient  branches  of  the  trade,  if  it 
is  conducted  by  those  conversant  with  the  conditions  of  the 
trade  and  interested  in  it,  will  necessarily  result  in  an  increase 
in  the  price  of  the  ultimate  product.  It  may  even  sensibly 
diminish  it  through  better  methods."  (16)  Mr.  Churchill 
is  able  to  point  out,  as  with  most  of  the  other  reforms,  that 
in  one  country  or  another  they  are  already  being  put  into 
effect,  the  legislation  against  "sweating"  being  already  in 
force  in  Bavaria  and  Baden,  as  well  as  in  Australia,  under  a 
somewhat  different  form. 

But  the  most  striking  of  the  British  labor  reforms  has  yet 
to  be  mentioned.  Not  only  were  the  present  old  age  pensions 
established  by  the  common  consent  of  all  the  political  parties, 
but  a  law  has  now  been  enacted  —  also  with  the  approval 
of  all  parties  (and  only  twenty-one  negative  votes  in  Parlia- 
ment) —  to  apply  the  same  methods  of  state  insurance 
of  workingmen  to  sickness,  accidents,  and  even  to  unem- 
ployment. The  old  age  pensions  were  already  more  rad- 
ical than  those  of  Prussia  in  that  the  workingmen  do 
not  have  to  contribute  under  the  British  law,  while  the 
National  Insurance  Bill  as  now  enacted  surpasses  both  the 
former  British  measure  and  the  German  precedent  in  every- 
thing, except  that  it  demands  a  lesser  total  sum  from  the 
government.  In  the  insurance  against  accidents,  sickness,  and 
unemployment  the  government,  instead  of  contributing  the 
whole  amount,  gives  from  two  ninths  to  one  third,  one  third 
to  one  half  being  assessed  against  employers  and  one  sixth 
to  four  ninths  against  employees.  At  first  this  reform,  it  is 
expected,  will  cost  only  about  $12,500,000,  and  it  will  be 
several  years  before  the  maximum  expenditure  of  $25,000,000 
is  reached.  But  the  measure  is  radical  in  several  particu- 
lars :  it  applies  to  clerks,  domestic  servants,  and  many  other 
classes  usually  not  reached  by  measures  of  the  kind, — a  total 
of  some  14,000,000  persons;  it  provides  $5,000,000  a  year 
for  the  maintenance  of  sanatoria  for  tuberculosis  and  creates 
new  health  boards  to  improve  sanitation  and  educate  the 
people  in  hygiene;  and  it  furnishes  physicians  and  medicines 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"  AND  LABOR  57 

for  the  insured,  thus  organizing  practically  the  whole  medical 
force  and  drug  supply  as  far  as  the  masses  are  concerned. 

In  fact,  the  whole  scheme  may  be  looked  on  not  so  much  as 
a  measure  to  aid  the  sick  and  wounded  of  industry  financially, 
as  to  set  at  work  an  automatic  pressure  working  towards  the 
preservation  of  the  health,  strength,  and  productive  capacity 
of  the  people,  and  incidentally  to  the  increase  of  profits. 
As  Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  in  an  interview  printed  in  the 
Daily  Mail:  "I  want  to  make  the  nation  more  healthy  than 
it  is.  The  great  mass  of  illness  which  afflicts  us  weighs  us 
down  and  is  easily  preventable.  It  is  a  better  thing  to  make 
a  man  healthy  than  to  pay  him  so  much  a  week  when  he  is  ill." 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  points  out  that  the  German  employers 
have  found  that  the  governmental  insurance  against  accidents 
has  proved  a  good  investment :  — 

"When  Bismarck  was  strengthening  the  foundation  of  the  new 
German  Empire,  one  of  the  very  first  tasks  he  undertook  was  the 
organization  of  a  scheme  which  insured  the  German  workmen  and 
their  families  against  the  worst  evils  arising  from  these  common 
accidents  of  life.  And  a  superb  scheme  it  was.  It  has  saved  an 
incalculable  amount  of  human  misery  to  hundreds  of  thousands  and 
possibly  millions  of  people. 

"Wherever  I  went  in  Germany,  north  or  south,  and  whomever  I 
met,  whether  it  was  an  employer  or  a  workman,  a  Conservative  or 
a  Liberal,  a  Socialist  or  a  Trade-union  Leader  —  men  of  all  ranks, 
sections  and  creeds,  with  one  accord  joined  in  lauding  the  benefits 
which  have  been  conferred  upon  Germany  by  this  beneficent  policy. 
Several  wanted  extensions,  but  there  was  not  one  who  wanted  to  go 
back.  The  employers  admitted  that  at  first  they  did  not  quite  like 
the  new  burdens  it  cast  upon  them,  but  they  now  fully  realized  the 
advantages  which  even  they  derived  from  the  expenditure,  for  it  had 
raised  the  standard  of  the  workman  throughout  Germany."  (My 
italics.)  (17) 

It  is  not  only  worry  and  anxiety  that  were  removed,  but 
definite  and  irregular  sums  that  workers  or  their  employers 
had  formerly  set  aside  for  insurance  against  accident,  sickness, 
and  old  age,  were  now  calculated  and  regulated  on  a  business 
basis  more  profitable  to  both  parties  to  the  labor  contract. 
It  is  true  that  in  Germany  the  employers  only  pay  part  of 
the  cost,  the  rest  being  borne  almost  entirely  by  employees, 
while  in  Great  Britain  —  as  far  as  the  old  age  pensions  go  — 
the  government  pays  all,  and  is  likely  to  pay  a  considerable 
part,  perhaps  a  third,  in  the  other  insurance  schemes.  But 
the  plan  by  which  the  government  pays  all  may  prove  even 


58  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

less  costly  to  the  employing  class,  since  landlords  and  inactive 
capitalists  on  the  one  hand  and  the  working  people  on  the 
other,  pay  the  larger  part  of  the  taxes  —  so  that  state  insur- 
ance in  this  thoroughgoing  form  is  perhaps  destined  to  be 
even  more  popular  than  the  German  kind. 

The  most  radical  provision  of  the  new  bill  is  that  which 
deals  with  unemployment.  Though  applying  only  to  the 
engineering  and  building  trades,  it  reaches  2,400,000  people. 
It  proposes  to  give  a  weekly  allowance  to  every  insured  person 
who  loses  employment  through  no  fault  of  his  own,  though 
nothing  is  given  in  strikes  and  lockouts.  And  it  is  intended 
to  extend  this  measure  to  other  employments.  This  is  only 
the  first  installment. 

It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Churchill's  project  that  the  State 
should  undertake  to  abolish  unemployment  altogether  is  the 
most  radical  of  all  the  proposed  policies,  excepting  only  that 
to  gradually  expropriate  all  the  future  unearned  increment 
of  land. 

"An  industrial  disturbance  in  the  manufacturing  districts  and  the 
great  cities  of  this  country,"  says  Mr.  Churchill,  "presents  itself 
to  the  ordinary  artisan  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  failure  of 
crops  in  a  large  province  in  India  presents  itself  to  the  Hindoo  culti- 
vator. The  means  by  which  he  lives  are  suddenly  removed,  and 
ruin  in  a  form  more  or  less  swift  and  terrible  stares  him  instantly  in 
the  face.  That  is  a  contingency  which  seems  to  fall  within  the  most 
primary  and  fundamental  obligations  of  any  organization  of  govern- 
ment. I  do  not  know  whether  in  all  countries  or  in  all  ages  that 
responsibility  could  be  maintained,  but  I  do  say  that  here  and  now, 
in  this  wealthy  country  and  in  this  scientific  age,  it  does  in  my 
opinion  exist,  is  not  discharged,  and  will  have  to  be  discharged."  (18) 

Mr.  Churchill  proposes  not  only  to  guard  against  periods 
of  unemployment  which  extend  to  all  industries  in  the  case 
of  industrial  crises,  but  also  to  provide  more  steady  employ- 
ment for  those  who  are  unoccupied  during  the  slack  seasons 
of  the  year  or  while  passing  from  one  employer  to  another. 
Above  all  he  plans  that  the  youth  of  the  nation  shall  not  waste 
their  strength  entirely  in  unremunerative  employment  or  in 
idleness,  but  that  every  boy  or  girl  under  eighteen  years  of 
age  should  be  learning  a  trade  as  well  as  making  a  living. 
Few  will  deny  that  the  program  of  Mr.  Churchill  and  his  asso- 
ciates in  this  direction  marks  a  great  step  towards  that  "more 
complete  or  elaborate  social  organization"  which  he  advocates. 

One  of  the  most  significant  of  all  the  measures  by  which 


"STATE  SOCIALISM'!  AND  LABOR  59 

Mr.  Churchill  plans  to  lend  the  aid  of  the  State  to  the  raising 
of  the  level  of  the  working  classes  is  his  "Development" 
Act.  The  object  of  this  bill,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Churchill, 
is  "to  provide  a  fund  for  the  economic  development  of  our 
country,  for  the  encouragement  of  agriculture,  for  affores- 
tation, for  the  colonization  of  England  (the  settlement  of 
agricultural  land),  and  for  the  making  of  roads,  harbors, 
and  other  public  works."  Stated  in  these  terms,  the  Devel- 
opment Act  is  a  measure  of  "State  Socialism"  for  the  gen- 
eral industrial  advance  of  the  country,  but  the  main  argument 
in  its  behalf  lies  in  that  clause  of  the  bill  which  provides,  to 
quote  from  Mr.  Churchill  again:  "that  the  prosecution  of 
these  works  shall  be  regulated,  as  far  as  possible,  by  the 
conditions  of  the  labor  market,  so  that  in  a  very  bad  year  of 
unemployment  they  can  be  expanded,  so  as  to  increase  the 
demand  for  labor  at  times  of  exceptional  slackness,  and  thus 
correct  and  counterbalance  the  cruel  fluctuations  of  the  labor 
market."  (19) 

We  have  seen  that  Mr.  Churchill  has  justified  these  meas- 
ures, not  as  increasing  the  relative  share  of  the  working 
classes,  but  as  adding  to  the  total  product.  They  are  to  add 
to  the  industrial  efficiency  of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  and  so 
incidentally  to  bring  a  greater  income  to  all,  —  but  in  much 
the  same  proportions  as  wealth  now  distributes  itself. 

In  this  country  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  advocated  a  typical 
"State  Socialist"  program  of  labor  reforms  including :  — 

"A  workday  of  not  more  than  eight  hours." 

"The  abolition  of  the  sweat-shop  system." 

"Sanitary  inspection  of  factory,  workshop,  mine,  and  home." 

"Liability  of  employers  for  injury  to  body  and  loss  of  life"  and 
"an  automatically  fixed  compensation." 

"The  passage  and  enforcement  of  rigid  anti-child-labor  laws 
which  will  cover  every  portion  of  this  country." 

"Laws  limiting  woman's  labor." 

All  these  measures  except  the  first  were  adopted  long  ago, 
in  considerable  part  at  least,  by  the  reactionary  government 
of  Prussia  and  are  being  introduced  generally  in  monarchical 
and  aristocratic  Europe,  and  I  have  shown  that  the  eight- 
hour  day  has  been  instituted  for  miners  in  Great  Britain  and 
that  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  proposed  to  extend  it.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  himself  concedes  that  "we  are  far  behind  the  older 
and  poorer  countries"  in  such  matters.  But  an  examination 


60  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

of  the  action  of  State  legislatures  during  the  year  just  past 
will  show  that  we  are  making  rapid  progress  in  the  same 
direction. 

"Social"  or  "industrial"  efficiency,  promoted  by  the  govern- 
ment, is  already  the  central  idea  in  American  labor  reform. 
Government  insurance  against  old  age,  accident,  sickness, 
and  unemployment  is  regarded,  not  as  the  "workingmen's 
compensation"  for  injuries  done  them  by  society,  but  as  an 
automatic  means  of  forcing  backward  employers  to  economize 
the  community's  limited  supply  of  labor  power  —  not  to 
wear  it  out  too  soon,  not  to  overstrain  it,  not  to  damage  it 
irreparably  or  lay  it  up  unnecessarily  for  repairs,  and  not  to 
leave  it  idle.  Mr.  Louis  Brandeis  points  out  that  mutual 
fire  insurance  has  appealed  to  certain  manufacturers  because 
in  twenty  years  it  has  resulted  in  measures  that  have  pre- 
vented more  than  two  thirds  of  the  expected  losses  by  fire. 
Similarly,  he  says,  "if  society  and  industry  and  the  individual 
were  made  to  pay  from  day  to  day  the  actual  cost  of  sickness, 
accident,  invalidity,  premature  death,  or  premature  old  age 
consequent  upon  excessive  hours  of  labor,  of  unhygienic 
conditions  of  work,  of  unnecessary  risk,  and  of  irregularity 
in  employment,  those  evils  would  be  rapidly  reduced."  (20) 

This,  as  Mr.  Brandeis  says,  is  undoubtedly  on  the  "road  to 
social  efficiency"  and  its  practical  application  will  convince 
employers  better  than  "mere  statements  of  cost,  however 
clear  and  forceful."  It  will  remove  a  vast  sea  of  human 
misery,  and  the  process  will  immensely  enrich  society.  But 
like  the  other  State  Capitalist  reforms  (until  they  are  supple- 
mented by  some  more  radical  policy)  it  will  at  the  same  time 
automatically  bring  about  an  increase  of  existing  inequalities 
of  income  and  an  intensification  of  social  injustice. 

Mr.  William  Hard  in  a  study  of  workingmen's  compensa- 
tion for  Everybody's  Magazine  has  reached  a  similar  conclu- 
sion to  that  of  Mr.  Brandeis:  "Far  from  attacking  the 
present  relationship  between  employer  and  employee,  auto- 
matic compensation  specifically  recognizes  it.  The  backbone 
of  the  present  so-called  '  capitalism' ;  namely,  the  hiring  of 
the  unpropertied  class  by  the  propertied  class  to  do  work  for 
wages,  is  not  caused  by  automatic  compensation  to  lose  a 
single  vertebra,  and  automatic  compensation  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  Socialism  except  that  it  is  accomplished 
under  the  supervision  of  the  State."  If  compulsory  insurance 
against  accidents  "has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Social- 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"  AND  LABOR  61 

ism,"  neither  have  compulsory  insurance  against  sickness, 
against  old  age,  against  certain  phases  of  unemployment. 

The  social  reformers  propose  a  labor  policy  that  is  for  the 
people  whether  they  like  it  or  not ;  the  only  "rights"  it  gives 
them  are  "the  right  to  live"  and  "the  right  to  work."  Its 
first  object  is  to  produce  more  efficient  and  profitable  labor- 
ers, its  second  to  have  the  government  take  control  of  organ- 
ized charity,  to  which  aspect  I  must  now  turn.  Most  of  the 
labor  reforms,  enacted  to  secure  for  the  laborer  "what  for 
the  Nation's  sake  even  the  poorest  of  its  subjects  should 
have,"  have  been  urged  more  strongly  by  philanthropists 
and  political  economists  than  by  representatives  of  the  work- 
ers. In  America  "the  minimum  wage,"  for  example,  is  being 
worked  up  by  a  special  committee  consisting  almost  exclu- 
sively of  this  class,  while  workmen's  compensation  has  been 
indorsed  by  the  most  varied  political  and  social  elements, 
from  the  chief  organ  of  American  philanthropists,  and  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt,  to  the  Hearst  newspapers. 

With  "the  national  efficiency"  in  view,  Mr.  Webb  asks 
the  British  government  to  take  up  the  policy  of  a  "national 
minimum,"  including  not  only  a  minimum  below  which 
wages  are  not  to  fall,  but  also  a  similar  minimum  of  leisure, 
sanitation,  and  education.  (21)  Mr.  Edward  Devine,  editor 
of  the  leading  philanthropic  and  reform  journal  in  America, 
the  Survey,  outlines  an  identical  policy  and  also  insists  like 
Mr.  Webb  that  the  Socialist  can  lay  no  exclusive  claim  to  it. 

"The  social  economist  [i.e.  reformer],"  writes  Mr.  Devine,  "is 
sometimes  confused  with  the  Utopian  [i.e.  Socialist].  They  are, 
however,  very  distinct  types  of  reformers.  The  Utopian  dreams 
of  ideals.  The  social  economist  seeks  to  establish  the  normal.  .  .  . 
The  social  worker  is  primarily  concerned,  not  with  the  lifting  of 
humanity  to  a  higher  level,  but  with  eradicating  the  maladjust- 
ments and  abnormalities,  the  needless  inequalities,  which  prevent 
our  realizing  our  own  reasonable  standards." 

Speaking  in  the  name  of  American  reformers  in  general, 
Mr.  Devine  demands  for  the  lower  levels  of  society  "normal 
standards"  of  life,  which  are  equivalent  to  Mr.  Webb's 
national  minimum,  and  definitely  denies  the  applicability 
of  "the  question-begging  epithet  of  Socialism  which  is  hurled 
at  all  the  reformers  engaged  in  such  work." 

"Whether  it  belongs  to  the  Socialist  program,"  Mr.  Devine 
objects,  "is  a  question  so  far  as  we  can  see  of  interest  only 


62  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

to  the  Socialists.  Our  advocacy  of  such  laws  as  we  enumer- 
ate has  no  Socialist  origin."  He  claims  that  the  "expendi- 
tures legitimately  directed  towards  the  removal  of  adverse 
social  conditions,  are  not  uneconomic  and  unproductive," 
and  that  "they  do  not  represent  a  mere  indulgence  of  altruis- 
tic sentiment,"  but  are  "investments";  of  which  prison 
reforms  and  the  expenditures  for  the  prevention  of  tuber- 
culosis are  examples.  (22) 

Another  phrase  for  the  proposed  saving  of  the  national 
labor  resources  and  the  introduction  of  minimum  standards 
in  its  philanthropic  aspect  is  "the  abolition  of  poverty." 
When  he  speaks  of  this  as  a  definite  and  by  no  means  a  dis- 
tant reform,  the  reformer  refers  to  that  extreme  form  of  pov- 
erty, so  widely  prevalent  to-day,  which  results  in  the  physical 
deterioration  and  the  industrial  inefficiency  of  a  large  part 
of  the  population. 

This  sort  of  poverty  is  a  burden  on  industry  and  the  capital- 
ists, and  Mr.  Lloyd  George  was  widely  applauded  when  he 
said  that  it  can  and  must  be  done  away  with.  He  has  cal- 
culated, too,  that  this  abolition  can  be  accomplished  at  half 
the  cost  of  the  annual  increase  in  armaments. 

"  This  is  a  War  Budget,"  said  Mr.  Lloyd  George  in  presenting  the 
reform  program  of  1910.  "  It  is  for  waging  implacable  war  against 
poverty  and  squalidness.  I  cannot  help  hoping  and  believing  that 
before  this  generation  has  passed  away  we  shall  have  advanced  a 
great  step  toward  the  time  when  poverty,  and  the  wretchedness 
and  the  human  degradation  which  always  follows  in  its  camp,  will 
be  as  remote  from  the  people  of  this  country  as  the  wolves  which 
once  infested  its  forests." 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who  has  been  a  leading  figure  in  the 
British  reform  world  and  in  the  Fabian  Society  for  many 
years,  speaks  on  this  reform  movement  not  merely  as  a  keen 
outside  observer.  As  an  advocate  of  more  radical  measures, 
he  argues  that  there  is  nothing  Socialistic  about  "the  national 
minimum."  This  "philanthropic  administrative  Social- 
ism," as  Mr.  Wells  calls  it,  is  very  remote,  he  says,  from  the 
spirit  of  his  own.  (23)  Yet,  critical  as  Mr.Wells  is,  he  also 
advocates  a  policy  that  could  be  summed  up  in  the  single 
phrase,  "industrial  efficiency."  "The  advent  of  a  strongly 
Socialistic  government  would  mean  no  immediate  revolu- 
tionary changes  at  all,"  he  says.  "There  would  be  no  doubt 
an  educational  movement  to  increase  the  economic  value 
and  productivity  of  the  average  citizen  of  the  next  generation, 


"STATE  SOCIALISM::  AND  LABOR  63 

and  legislation  upon  the  lines  laid  down  by  the  principle  of 
the  'minimum  wage'  to  check  the  waste  of  our  national 
resources  by  destructive  employment.  Also  a  shifting  of 
the  burden  of  taxation  of  enterprise  to  rent  would  begin." 
(My  italics.)  The  Liberals  who  are  already  setting  these 
reforms  on  foot  disclaim  any  connection  whatever  with 
Socialism,  but  Mr.  Wells  argues  that  they  do  not  realize  the 
real  nature  of  their  policy. 

The  establishment  of  this  paternal  "State  Socialism," 
whether  based  on  a  philanthropic  "national  minimum"  or 
a  scientific  policy  of  "industrial  efficiency,"  many  other 
"Socialists"  besides  those  of  Great  Britain  consider  to  be 
the  chief  task  of  Socialism  itself  in  our  generation.  Among 
the  latter  was  the  late  Edmond  Kelly,  a  member  of  the 
Socialist  party  in  this  country  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
who,  in  his  posthumous  work,  "Twentieth  Century  Social- 
ism," has  summed  up  his  political  faith  in  much  the  same 
way  as  the  anti-Socialist  reformer  might  have  done.  He 
says  that  three  of  the  four  chief  objects  of  Socialism  are 
the  organization  of  society,  first  "to  prevent  that  overwork 
and  unemployment  which  lead  to  drunkenness,  pauperism, 
prostitution,  and  crime"  ;  second,  "to  preserve  the  resources 
of  the  country";  and  third,  "to  produce  with  the  greatest 
economy,  with  the  greatest  efficiency."  (24)  Yet  Mr. 
Carnegie  and  Mr.  Rockefeller,  as  well  as  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
agree  to  all  three  of  these  policies.  They  are  precisely  what 
the  leading  Socialists  have  called  "State  Socialism." 

A  part  of  the  working  people,  also,  are  disposed  to  subordi- 
nate their  own  conceptions  of  what  is  just,  in  spite  of  their 
own  better  judgment,  to  an  exclusive  longing  for  an  immediate 
trial  of  this  kind  of  State  benevolence.  This  is  expressed  in 
the  widely  used  phrase,  "every  man  to  have  the  right  to 
work  and  live,"  -  —  employed  editorially,  for  example,  by  Mr. 
Berger,  now  Socialist  Congressman.  What  is  demanded  by 
this  principle  is  not  a  greater  proportion  of  the  national  income 
or  an  increasing  share  of  the  control  over  the  national  govern- 
ment, but  the  "State  Socialist"  remedies,  employment,  and  the 
minimum  wage.  In  its  origin  this  is  the  begging  on  the  part 
of  the  economically  lowest  element,  a  class  which  Henry 
George  well  remarks  has  been  degraded  by  poverty  until  it 
considers  that  "the  chance  to  labor  is  a  boon." 

Some  years  ago  the  municipal  platform  of  the  Milwaukee 
Socialists  said  that  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  "that  the 


64  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

famine-stricken  is  better  served  with  a  piece  of  bread  than 
with  the  most  brilliant  program  of  the  future"  and  that  "in 
view  of  the  hopelessness  of  an  immediate  radical  better- 
ment in  the  position  of  the  working  class"  it  is  necessary 
to  emphasize  the  importance  of  attaining  "the  next  best."  (25) 
Here  again  was  admitted  complete  dependence  on  those  who 
own  the  bread  and  have  the  disposition  of  "the  next  best" 
in  political  reforms.  When  capitalism  is  a  little  better 
organized,  the  working  people  will  be  guaranteed  "the  next 
best":  steady  work  and  the  food,  conditions,  and  training 
necessary  to  make  that  work  efficient  —  just  as  surely  as 
valuable  slaves  were  given  these  rights  by  intelligent  masters 
or  as  valuable  horses  even  are  given  care  and  kindly  treat- 
ment to-day. 

"A  Socialist  Social  Worker"  has  published  anonymously 
in  the  Survey  a  letter  which  presents  in  a  few  words  the  whole 
Socialist  position  as  to  this  type  of  reform.  The  writer 
claims  that  the  very  fact  that  he  is  a  social  worker  shows  that 
even  as  a  Socialist  he  welcomes  "every  addition  to  the  stand- 
ard of  living  that  may  be  wrested  or  argued  from  the  Capital- 
ist class,"  since  all  Socialists  recognize  that  "no  undernour- 
ished class  ever  won  a  fight  against  economic  exploitation, 
but  that  the  more  is  given  the  more  will  be  demanded  and 
secured."  But  he  does  not  feel  that  the  material  better- 
ments have  any  closer  relation  to  Socialism. 

"The  new  feudalism,"  he  says,  "will  care  for  and  conserve 
the  powers  of  the  human  industrial  tool  as  the  lord  of  the 
manor  looked  after  the  human  agricultural  implement.  .  .  ." 
Here  is  the  essential  point:  the  efficiency  of  the  human  in- 
dustrial tool  is  to  be  improved  with  or  without  his  consent. 

"Unrestrained  Capitalism,"  says  the  same  writer  in  explanation 
of  his  prediction,  "has  hitherto  invariably  meant  the  physical  de- 
terioration of  the  working  class  and  the  marginal  disintegration  of 
society  —  the  loosening  of  social  ties  and  the  pushing  of  marginal 
members  of  society  over  the  brink  into  poverty,  pauperism,  va- 
grancy, drunkenness,  prostitution,  wife  desertion  and  crime,  but 
this  deterioration  is  not  the  main  indictment  against  capitalism,  and 
will  be  remedied  by  the  wiser  capitalists  themselves.  The  main 
indictment  of  capitalism  is  that  it  selfishly  and  stupidly  blocks  the 
road  of  orderly  and  continuous  progress  for  the  race." 

The  proposal  of  the  social  reformers,  as  far  as  the  workers 

are  concerned  aims  to  put  an  end  to  this  deterioration,  to 

.standardize  industry  or  to  establish  a  minimum  of  wages, 


65 

leisure,  health,  and  industrial  efficiency.     The  writer  says 
that  the  Socialists  aim  at  something  more  than  this. 

"The  criterion  of  social  justice  in  every  civilized  community, 
he  writes,  "is,  and  always  has  been,  not  how  large  or  how  intense  is 
the  misery  of  the  social  debtor  class,  but  what  is  done  with  the  social 
surplus  of  industry?  It  was  formerly  used  to  build  pyramids,  to 
create  a  landed  or  ecclesiastical  or  literary  aristocracy,  to  conduct 
wars,  or  to  provide  the  means  of  a  sensuous  life  for  the  majority 
of  a  privileged  class,  and  the  means  of  dilettantism  for  the  minority 
of  it.  The  difference  between  the  near  Socialist  and  the  true  Socialist 
is  principally  that  the  main  attention  of  the  former  is  given  to  the  negative 
side  of  the  social  problem  —  the  condition  of  the  submerged  classes, 
while  that  of  the  latter  is  given  to  the  positive  side  of  the  problem  —  the 
wonderful  development,  power,  and  life  that  would  come  to  that  race  and 
the  individual  if  a  wise  and  social  use  were  to  be  made  of.  the  surplus  of 
industry." 


CHAPTER  V 
COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION 

So  far  I  have  spoken  only  of  the  constructive  side  of  the 
new  capitalism's  labor  program,  its  purpose  to  produce 
healthy  and  industrially  efficient  laborers  so  as  to  increase 
profits.  "State  Socialism"  gives  the  workingman  as  a 
citizen  certain  carefully  measured  political  rights,  and  legis- 
lates actively  in  his  behalf  as  a  profit-producing  employee  at 
work,  but  its  policy  is  reversed  the  moment  it  deals  with 
him  and  his  organizations  as  owners  and  sellers  of  labor. 

Towards  the  individual  workers,  who  are  completely 
powerless  either  politically  or  economically  until  they  are 
organized,  the  new  capitalism  is,  on  the  whole,  both  be- 
nevolent and  actually  beneficent.  But  it  does  not  propose 
that  organized  labor  shall  obtain  a  power  either  in  industry 
or  in  government  in  any  way  comparable  to  that  of  or- 
ganized capital. 

"Successful  State  Socialism,"  as  Victor  S.  Clark  says  in 
writing  of  the  Australian  experiments,  "depends  largely 
upon  perfecting  public  control  over  the  individual."  (1) 
But  compulsory  arbitration  of  labor  disputes  which  reaches 
the  wage  earners'  organizations,  is  far  more  important  to 
"State  Socialism "  than  any  other  form  of  control  over  in- 
dividual. A  considerable  measure  of  individual  liberty  may 
be  allowed  without  endangering  this  new  social  polity,  and  it 
is  even  intended  systematically  to  encourage  the  more  able 
among  the  workers  by  some  form  of  individual  or  piece 
wages  —  or  at  least  a  high  degree  of  classification  of  the 
workers  —  and  by  a  scheme  of  promotion  that  will  utilize 
the  most  able  in  superior  positions,  and  incidentally  remove 
them  out  of  the  way  as  possible  leaders  of  discontent. 

Nor  is  it  intended  to  use  any  compulsion  on  labor  organiza- 
tions beyond  that  which  is  essential  to  prevent  them  from 
securing  a  power  in  society  in  any  way  comparable  to  that 
of  property  and  capital.  For  this  purpose  compulsory 
arbitration  is  the  direct  and  perfect  tool.  It  can  be  limited 

66 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  67 

in  its  application  to  those  industries  where  the  unions  really 
occupy  a  position  of  strategic  importance  like  railroads  and 
coal  mines,  and  it  can  be  used  to  attach  to  the  government 
those  employees  that  are  unable  to  help  themselves.  I  have 
mentioned  those  weaker  groups  of  employees  who  would  be 
unable  to  improve  their  condition  very  materially  except 
by  government  aid,  and,  even  when  so  raised  to  a  some- 
what higher  level,  have  no  power  to  harm  capitalism.  Com- 
pulsory arbitration  or  some  similar  device  must  therefore 
replace  such  crudely  restrictive  and  oppressive  measures  as 
have  hitherto  been  applied  to  the  unions. 

In  the  United  States  all  "dangerous"  strikes  are  at  present 
throttled  by  court  injunctions  forbidding  the  strikers  to  take 
any  effective  action,  and  boycotts  are  held  to  be  forbidden 
by  the  Sherman  law  originally  directed  against  the  "trusts." 
Recently  the  Supreme  Court  decided  that  the  officers  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  were  not  to  be  imprisoned  for 
violation  of  the  latter  statute.  But  the  decision  was  purely 
on  technical  grounds,  and  the  court  upheld  unanimously  the 
application  of  the  law  to  the  unions.  There  is  little  question 
that  the  attorney  for  the  manufacturers,  Daniel  Davenport, 
was  right  when  he  thus  summed  up  the  court's  opinion :  — 

"It  held  that  the  boycott  is  illegal;  that  the  victim  of  the  boy- 
cott has  the  right  to  go  into  court  of  equity  for  protection  by  in- 
junction; that  such  court  has  the  right  to  enjoin  any  and  every 
act  done  in  enforcing  the  boycott,  including  the  sending  out  of 
boycott  notices,  circulars,  etc.,  that  the  alleged  constitutional  right 
of  free  speech  and  free  press  affords  the  boycotter  no  immunity 
for  such  publication  ;  that  for  a  violation  of  the  injunction  the 
party  violating  it  is  liable  to  be  punished  both  civilly  and  crim- 
inally." 

Against  this  law  and  the  use  of  injunctions  in  labor  dis- 
putes the  Federation  of  Labor  has  introduced  a  bill  through 
Congressman  W.  B.  Wilson,  which  aims  to  free  the  unions 
from  these  legal  obstacles  by  enacting  that  no  right  to  con- 
tinue the  relation  of  employer  to  employee  or  to  carry  on 
business  shall  be  construed  as  property  or  a  property  right ; 
and  that  no  agreement  between  two  or  more  persons  concern- 
ing conditions  of  employment  or  its  termination  shall  con- 
stitute a  conspiracy  or  an  offense  against  the  law  unless  it 
would  be  unlawful  if  done  by  a  single  individual,  and  that, 
therefore,  such  an  act  is  not  subject  to  injunctions.  While 
neither  of  the  great  parties  has  definitely  promised  to  sup- 


68  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

port  this  particular  measure,  one  party  has  made  a  vague 
promise  to  restrict  injunctions,  and  the  leaders  of  the  progres- 
sive wings  of  both  are  quite  definite  about  it.  Nearly  half 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  voted  for  the  repeal  of  the 
Sherman  law  as  applied  against  union  boycotts.  Senator 
La  Follette  has  demanded  the  abolition  of  this  species  of 
injunction,  and  Governor  Woodrow  Wilson  has  accused  our 
federal  courts  of  "elaborating  a  theory  of  conspiracy  destined 
to  bring  'the  sympathetic  strike'  and  what  is  termed  'the 
secondary  boycott'  under  legal  condemnation." 

Such  reforms  are  not  as  radical  as  might  appear  to  Ameri- 
cans, for  the  boycott  is  legal  in  Germany,  while  the  crime  of 
"conspiracy"  was  repealed  in  Great  Britain  in  1875,  and  the 
rights  of  strikers  were  further  protected  in  that  country  by 
the  repeal  of  the  Taff  Vale  decision  against  picketing  a  few 
years  ago,  and  yet  unions  are  in  no  very  strong  position  there. 
And  weak  as  they  are,  the  talk  of  compulsory  arbitration 
is  growing,  and  it  seems  only  question  of  time  until  some  modi- 
fication of  it  is  adopted.  And,  though  the  abuse  of  injunc- 
tions and  the  other  forms  of  anti-union  laws  and  decisions 
now  prevailing  will  probably  be  done  away  with  in  this  coun- 
try, there  is  little  doubt  that  here  also  employers  will  use 
some  great  coal  or  railroad  strike  as  a  pretext  for  enacting 
a  compulsory  arbitration  law.  (a) 

Similarly,  as  governments  continue  to  take  on  new  indus- 
trial functions,  great  importance  is  attached  to  the  right  of 
government  employees,  now  denied,  to  organize  and  to  join 
unions.  Senator  La  Follette  and  other  progressives  also 
champion  this  right  against  President  Taft,  and  will  doubtless 
win  their  fight,  but,  as  I  shall  show  later  a  right  to  organize 
does  not  mean  a  right  to  strike  —  and  there  seems  no  prob- 
ability that  any  government  will  fail  to  answer  the  effort 

(o)  In  her  "American  Socialism  of  the  Present  Day"  (p.  185),  Miss 
Hughan  has  quoted  me  (see  the  New  York  Call  of  December  12,  1909), 
as  classing  the  abolition  of  the  injunction  as  one  of  the  revolutionary  demands 
never  to  be  satisfied  until  the  triumph  of  Socialism.  As  a  means  to  check 
the  growth  of  the  power  of  the  unions,  this  method  of  arbitrary  government 
by  judges  has  never  been  resorted  to  except  in  the  United  States.  It  is 
evident,  then,  that  this  statement  was  only  meant  for  America.  It  should 
also  have  been  qualified  so  as  to  apply  solely  to  the  America  of  to-day.  For 
as  other  methods  of  checking  the  unions  exist  in  other  countries,  it  is  obvious 
that  they  could  be  substituted  in  this  country  for  the  injunction,  a  proposi- 
tion in  entire  accord  with  all  I  have  written  on  the  subject  —  though  unfor- 
tunately not  stated  in  this  brief  journalistic  expression.  I  have  now  come 
to  the  belief,  on  the  grounds  given  in  the  text,  not  only  that  a  new  method 
of  fighting  the  unions  (namely,  compulsory  arbitration)  can  be  substituted 
for  the  injunction,  but  that  this  will  be  done  within  a  very  few  years. 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  69 

to  strike  on  any  very  large  scale  either  by  punishment  for 
conspiracy  against  the  State  or  by  excluding  the  strikers 
permanently  from  government  employment.  They  will 
doubtless  be  offered,  as  in  France,  instead  of  the  right  to  strike, 
the  right  to  submit  their  grievances  as  a  body,  if  they  wish 
it,  to  some  government  board  (see  Part  III,  Chapter  VI). 

The  Australasian  labor  leaders  were  the  first  and  are  still 
the  chief  advocates  of  compulsory  arbitration  among  the 
unionists,  and  if  they  find  it  used  against  them  they  have 
nobody  but  themselves  to  blame.  That  Labor  is  disap- 
pointed in  the  result  in  those  countries  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  of  late  years,  both  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
the  most  important  strikes  have  been  settled  outside  of  the 
compulsory  arbitration  acts,  and  Mr.  Clark  states  that  he 
is  unaware  of  any  important  exception. 

But  that  the  workers  in  Australia  still  hope  to  use  this 
legislation  for  their  purposes  is  shown  by  the  referendum  of 
1911,  by  which  they  sought  to  nationalize  the  State  laws  on 
the  subject.  At  the  time  of  the  railroad  strike  in  Victoria, 
Australia,  in  1903,  a  law  was  passed  which  imposed  a  penalty 
of  "twelve  months'  imprisonment  or  a  fine  of  one  hundred 
pounds"  for  engaging  in  a  strike  on  government  railways, 
and  made  a  man  liable  to  arrest  without  warrant  or  bail 
"for  advising  a  strike  orally  or  by  publication,  or  for  attend- 
ing any  meetings  of  more  than  six  persons  for  the  purpose 
of  encouraging  strikers."  Even  then  the  limit  had  not  been 
reached.  In  1909  the  Parliament  of  New  South  Wales 
passed  an  act  especially  directed  against  strikes  in  any 
industry  which  produced  "the  necessary  commodities  of 
life  [these  being  defined  as  coal,  gas,  water,  and  food]  the 
privation  of  which  may  tend  to  endanger  human  life  or  cause 
serious  bodily  injury,"  and  the  penalty  of  twelve  months' 
imprisonment  of  the  Victorian  law  was  extended  to  all  this 
vast  group  of  industries  also.  The  law  of  New  South  Wales 
was  most  stringent,  providing  that  any  one  taking  part  in 
a  strike  meeting  under  these  circumstances  is  also  liable 
to  twelve  months'  imprisonment,  and  that  the  police  may 
break  into  the  headquarters  of  any  union  and  seize  any 
documents  "which  they  reasonably  suspect  to  relate  to 
any  walk-out  or  strike."  Under  this  law  the  well-known 
labor  leader,  Peter  Bowling,  was  sentenced  to  one  year  of 
imprisonment. 

The  unions  violently  denounced  this  enactment,  but  chiefly 


70  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

as  they  had  denounced  previous  legislation,  on  the  ground  that 
it  permitted  unorganized  workmen  to  apply  for  relief  under 
the  law.  That  is  to  say,  while  the  employers  were  using  the 
law  to  make  striking  a  crime,  they  were  extending  such  bene- 
fits as  it  produced  to  the  nonunion  workers  who  can  often 
be  used  as  tools  for  their  purposes.  But  the  astounding 
hold  that  "State  Socialism"  has  on  the  Australian  masses, 
especially  on  the  working  people,  is  shown  by  the  steadfast 
belief  that  this  measure  can  be  amended  so  as  to  operate 
to  their  interest.  Bowling  and  his  unions  made  a  serious 
agitation  for  the  general  strike  against  the  coercive  measure 
just  mentioned,  but  it  was  only  by  a  tie  vote  that  the  New 
South  Wales  Labour  Congress  even  favored  protest  in  the 
form  of  cancelling  the  agreement  which  the  unions  had  made 
under  the  Industrial  Disputes  Acts,  while  in  the  next  elec- 
tions New  South  Wales  returned  a  majority  of  labor  repre- 
sentatives opposing  Bowling's  policy  of  radical  protest. 
That  is,  the  majority  of  the  working  people  still  express 
confidence  in  the  possibilities  of  compulsory  arbitration, 
and  even  want  to  extend  it. 

Professor  Le  Rossignol  of  the  United  States  and  Mr. 
William  D.  Stewart  of  New  Zealand  have  undertaken  a  care- 
ful and  elaborate  investigation  of  compulsory  arbitration 
in  New  Zealand.  (2)  A  reference  to  a  few  of  their  quota- 
tions from  original  documents  will  show  the  nature  and 
possibilities  of  this  coercive  measure  as  it  has  developed  in 
the  country  of  its  origin.  The  original  law  in  New  Zealand 
was  introduced  by  the  Honorable  William  Pember  Reeves, 
the  Minister  of  Labor,  in  1894,  and  was  supported  by  the« 
labor  leaders.  Mr.  Reeves  says :  "What  the  act  was  pri- 
marily passed  to  do  was  to  put  an  end  to  the  larger  and 
more  dangerous  class  of  strikes  and  lockouts.  The  second 
object  of  the  act's  framer  was  to  set  up  tribunals  to  regulate 
the  conditions  of  labor." 

"Mr.  Reeves'  chief  idea,"  say  our  authors,  "was  to  pre- 
vent strikes,  and  a  great  deal  more  was  said  in  Parliament 
about  industrial  peace  than  about  the  improvement  in  the 
conditions  of  labor  which  the  act  was  to  bring  about.  But 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  unionists,  without  whose 
help  the  act  could  not  have  been  passed,  thought  more  of 
the  latter  than  of  the  former  result,  and  looked  upon  the 
act  as  an  important  part  of  the  new  legislation  for  the  benefit 
of  the  working  class."  Here  is  the  contrast  that  we  must 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  71 

always  keep  in  mind.  The  purpose  of  the  unionists  is  to  see 
if  they  cannot  obtain  improvements  in  their  conditions;  the 
purpose  of  the  employers  and  also  of  "the  public"  is  to  prevent 
strikes.  One  of  the  most  able  students  of  the  situation,  Mr. 
MacGregor,  has  shown  that  since  the  passing  of  the  law  the 
latter  purpose  has  been  thoroughly  accomplished,  since  it 
has  been  used  not  only  as  was  originally  intended,  to  settle 
labor  disputes  which  become  so  serious  as  to  threaten  to 
"arrest  the  processes  of  industry,"  but  that  it  has  practically 
built  up  a  "system  of  governmental  regulation  of  wages  and 
conditions  of  labor  in  general."  That  is  to  say,  the  law  has 
accomplished  rather  the  purposes  of  the  employers  than  those 
of  the  employees. 

In  another  point  of  the  most  fundamental  importance  the 
law  has  become  something  radically  different  from  what  the 
labor  leaders  who  first  favored  it  hoped  it  would  be.  The 
act  of  1894  was  entitled:  "An  act  to  encourage  the  forma- 
tion of  industrial  unions  and  associations  and  to  facilitate 
the  settlement  of  industrial  disputes  by  conciliation  and 
arbitration."  By  the  amendment  of  1898  the  words,  "to  en- 
courage the  formation  of  industrial  unions  and  associations," 
were  left  out.  Thus  the  law  ceased  to  be  directly  helpful  to 
the  very  unions  which  had  done  so  much  to  bring  it  about  and 
are  the  only  means  employees  possess  to  make  the  law  serve 
them  instead  of  becoming  a  new  weapon  for  employers. 

An  early  decision  of  the  Arbitration  Court  in  1896  had 
declared  that  preference  should  be  given  to  the  unionists. 
"Since  the  employer  was  the  judge  of  the  qualifications  of 
his  employees,  the  unionists  did  not  gain  much  by  this  deci- 
sion," say  Le  Rossignol  and  Stewart.  "In  later  awards  it 
was  usually  specified  that  preference  was  granted  only  when 
the  union  was  not  a  closed  guild,  but  practically  open  to  every 
person  of  good  character  who  desired  to  join."  These  later 
decisions  brought  it  about  that  the  so-called  preference  of 
unionists  became  no  preference  at  all.  "The  Arbitration 
Court,  except  in  a  few  minor  cases,  has  refused  to  grant 
unconditional  preference  and  the  unionists,  realizing  that 
preference  to  an  open  union  is  no  preference  at  all,  now  look 
to  Parliament  for  redress  and  demand  statutory  uncondi- 
tional preference  to  unionists." 

In  1905  strikes  and  lockouts  were  made  statutory  offenses, 
and  a  single  judge  was  given  the  power  practically  to  force 
the  individual  worker  to  labor.  After  ten  years  of  trial  the 


72  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

law  had  become  almost  unrecognizable  from  the  working- 
man's  standpoint,  and  from  this  moment  on  the  resistance 
to  it  has  grown  steadily.  In  a  decision  rendered  in  1906, 
the  Chief  Justice  said :  "The  right  of  a  workman  to  make  a 
contract  is  exceedingly  limited.  The  right  of  free  contract 
is  taken  away  from  the  worker,  and  he  has  been  placed  in  a 
condition  of  servitude  or  status,  and  the  employee  must 
conform  to  that  condition."  Not  only  do  judges  have  this 
power,  but  they  have  the  option  of  applying  or  not  applying 
it  as  they  see  fit,  for  the  amendment  of  1908  "expressly 
permits  the  court  to  refuse  to  make  an  award  if  for  any  reason 
it  considers  it  desirable  to  do  so."  With  a  law,  then,  that 
in  no  way  aids  the  unions,  as  such  —  however  beneficial 
it  may  be  at  times  to  the  individual  workingman  —  and 
which  leaves  an  arbitrary  power  in  the  hands  of  the  judge 
elected  by  an  agricultural  majority,  what  has  been  the  con- 
crete result  ?  Especially,  what  principles  have  been  applied 
by  the  judges  ? 

Of  course  the  first  principle  has  been  that  all  the 
working  people  should  get  what  is  called  a  "minimum" 
or  a  "living"  wage,  but  our  authors  show  that  merely 
to  keep  their  heads  above  the  sea  of  pauperism  was  not 
at  all  the  goal  of  the  workers  of  New  Zealand.  No  doubt 
they  were  already  getting  such  a  wage  in  that  relatively 
new  and  prosperous  country,  yet  this  was  all  the  new  law 
did  or  could  offer,  besides  keeping  existing  wage  scales  up  to 
the  rising  cost  of  living.  Anything  more  would  have  required, 
not  compulsory  arbitration,  but  a  series  of  revolutionary 
changes  in  the  whole  economic  and  political  structure. 
"Another  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  advance  in  wages 
is  the  inefficient  or  marginal  or  no-profit  employer,  who, 
hanging  on  the  ragged  edge  of  ruin,  opposes  the  raising  of 
wages  on  the  ground  that  the  slightest  concession  would 
plunge  him  into  bankruptcy.  His  protests  have  their  effect 
on  the  Arbitration  Court,  which  tries  to  do  justice  to  all  the 
parties  and  fears  to  make  any  change  for  fear  of  hurting 
somebody.  But  the  organized  workers,  caring  nothing  for 
the  interests  of  any  particular  employer,  demand  improved 
conditions  of  labor,  though  the  inefficient  employer  be  elimi- 
nated and  all  production  be  carried  on  by  a  few  capable 
employers  doing  business  on  a  large  scale  and  able  to  pay  the 
highest  wages." 

Here  is  the  essential  flaw  in  compulsory  arbitration  in 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  73 

competitive  industries  (its  limitations  under  monopolies 
will  be  mentioned  later).  The  courts  cannot  apply  a  differ- 
ent standard  to  different  employers.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
cannot  fix  a  wage  which  any  employer  cannot  afford  to  pay 
or  which  will  drive  him  out  of  business.  That  is  to  say,  the 
standard  tends  to  be  fixed  by  what  the  poorest  employer 
can  pay,  the  employer  who,  from  the  standpoint  either  of 
capital  or  of  labor  or  of  efficient  industry,  really  deserves 
to  be  driven  from  business.  An  exception  is  made  only 
against  such  employers  as  cannot  even  afford  to  pay  a  living 
wage  —  these  alone  are  eliminated. 

Le  Rossignol  and  Stewart  show  that  in  view  of  these  con- 
siderations the  court  has  repeatedly  stated  that  "profit 
sharing  could  not  be  taken  as  a  basis  of  awards,  on  the 
ground  that  it  would  involve  the  necessity  of  fixing  differen- 
tial rates  of  wages,  which  would  lead  to  confusion,  would  be 
unfair  to  many  employers,  and  unsatisfactory  to  the  workers 
themselves." 

With  such  a  principle  guiding  the  court,  and  it  is  probably 
a  necessity  under  commercial  competition,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  some  of  the  representatives  of  the  unions  have  claimed 
that  annual  real  wages  have  actually  fallen.  "  It  is  not  easy," 
say  our  authors,  "to  show  that  compulsory  arbitration  has 
greatly  benefited  the  workers  of  the  Colony.  Sweating  has 
been  abolished,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  it  would  not  have 
disappeared  in  the  years  of  prosperity  without  the  help  of 
the  Arbitration  Court.  Strikes  have  been  largely  prevented, 
but  it  is  possible  that  the  workers  might  have  gained  as  much 
or  more  by  dealing  directly  with  their  employers  than  by  the 
mediation  of  the  court.  As  to  wages,  it  is  generally  admitted 
that  they  have  not  increased  more  than  the  cost  of  living. 
A  careful  investigation  by  Mr.  von  Dalezman,  the  Registrar- 
General,  shows  that,  while  the  average  wages  increased  from 
1895  to  1907  in  the  ratio  of  84.8  to  104.9,  the  cost  of  food 
increased  in  the  ratio  of  84.3  to  103.3.  No  calculation  was 
attempted  for  clothing  or  rent."  If  we  take  it  into  account 
that  rents  have  risen  very  rapidly  and  are  especially  com- 
plained of  by  the  working  people,  we  can  see  that  real  wages, 
measured  by  their  purchasing  power,  probably  fell  in  the  first 
twelve  years  of  compulsory  arbitration,  notwithstanding 
that  it  was  on  the  whole  a  period  of  prosperity  in  the  Colony. 
For  ten  years,  as  a  consequence,  the  complaints  of  the  workers 
against  the  decisions  have  been  growing,  "not  because  the 


74  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

wages  were  reduced,  but  because  they  were  not  increased, 
and  because  other  demands  were  not  granted." 
f  When  the  unions  perceived  that  the  principles  for  which 
they  have  been  contending  were  not  granted,  and  that  their 
material  conditions  were  not  being  improved,  it  was  suggested 
that  the  judge  of  the  Arbitration  Court  should  be  elected 
by  the  people,  in  the  hope  that  the  unions  might  control  the 
election,  "but  this  would  be  at  variance  with  all  British 
traditions  and  could  not  be  brought  about,"  say  our  authors. 
No  doubt  British  tradition  has  had  something  to  do  with 
the  matter,  but  the  impracticability  of  this  remedy  is  much 
more  due  to  the  fact  that  the  employees  confront  an  agri- 
cultural and  middle  class  majority. 

At  first  it  was  the  employers  who  were  displeased,  but  now 
they  are  becoming  converted.  The  employers,  say  Le 
Rossignol  and  Stewart,  "have  come  to  realize  that  they 
might  have  lost  more  by  strikes  than  they  have  ever  lost  by 
arbitration ;  and,  since  the  workers  have  been  dissatisfied, 
the  employers  are  more  disposed  to  stand  by  the  act,  or  to 
maintain  a  neutral  attitude,  waiting  to  see  what  the  working- 
men  will  do." 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  real  gain  from  the  law  has 
been  through  the  abolition  of  strike  losses,  and  since  these 
had  previously  been  borne  by  employers  and  employees  alike, 
this  saving  has  been  pretty  equally  divided  between  the  two 
classes,  neither  making  any  relative  gain  over  the  other.  But 
at  the  bottom  this  is  a  blow  to  the  unions,  for  the  purpose  of 
every  union  policy  is  not  merely  to  leave  things  where  they 
were  before,  but  to  increase  the  workers'  relative  share.  Any 
policy  that  brings  mutual  gain  requires  no  organized  struggle 
of  any  kind.  It  is  the  workers  who  are  the  plaintiffs,  and  the 
employers  the  defendants.  When  things  are  left  in  statu  quo 
it  is  a  moral  and  actual  defeat  for  the  employees. 

This  is  why,  in  the  last  two  or  three  years,  the  whole  labor 
movement  in  New  Zealand  has  arisen  against  the  law.  In 
1908  the  coal  miners'  union  refused  to  pay  a  fine  levied 
against  it,  alleging  that  it  had  no  funds.  "In  this  position 
the  union  was  generally  condemned  by  public  opinion,  but 
supported  by  a  number  of  unions  by  resolutions  of  sympathy 
and  gifts  of  money.  Finally,  the  Arbitration  Court  decided 
to  proceed  against  the  men  individually  for  their  share  of  the 
fine.  The  whole  of  the  fine,  together  with  the  costs  of  col- 
lection, amounting  to  over  147  pounds,  was  recovered  by 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  75 

means  of  attachment  orders  under  the  Wages  Attachment 
Act  of  1895.  According  to  a  recent  decision  of  the  Court 
of  Appeals,  the  men  could  have  been  imprisoned,  if  they 
had  refused  to  pay,  for  a  maximum  term  of  one  year,  but  it 
was  not  necessary  to  do  this,  and  public  opinion  was  not  in 
favor  of  imprisonment  for  the  offense." 

This  and  other  strikes  in  1907  and  1908  "caused  a  wide- 
spread opinion  among  employers  and  the  general  public  that 
the  act  should  be  amended  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  preventing 
strikes.  "The  laborers,  as  a  class,  were  not  enthusiastic 
about  the  matter,  since  the  proposed  amendments  were 
designed  to  compel  them  to  obey  the  law  rather  than  to 
bring  them  any  additional  benefit."  After  having  been 
debated  for  a  year,  a  new  law  was  passed,  and  went  into  effect 
January  1,  1909.  This  new  law,  though  still  compulsory, 
repeals  some  of  the  features  of  the  previous  legislation  which 
were  most  obnoxious  to  the  unions.  Even  this  act,  however, 
they  found  entirely  unsatisfactory,  and  "during  the  year 
ending  March  31,  1909,  sixteen  workers'  unions,  and  a  like 
number  of  employers'  unions,  had  their  registration  cancelled 
for  neglect,  while  two  other  unions  formally  cancelled  their 
registration."  This  meant  practically  that  these  unions  have 
withdrawn  from  the  field  of  the  act  and  expressed  their  dis- 
approval of  compulsory  arbitration,  even  in  its  recently 
modified  form.  Not  only  have  the  unions  been  withdrawing, 
but,  freed  from  its  bondage,  they  began  at  once  to  win  their 
most  important  strikes,  indicating  what  its  effect  had  been. 
Even  the  employees  of  the  State  have  been  striking,  and 
successfully. 

"The  workers'  position  is  embarrassing.  The  original 
act  was  passed  for  their  benefit  as  well  as  to  prevent  strikes, 
but  when  it  could  no  longer  be  used  as  a  machine  for  raising 
wages,  they  were  the  first  to  rebel  against  it."  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  our  authors  are  correct,  and  that  the  working 
people  are  beginning  to  feel  they  have  been  trapped.  In  both 
New  Zealand  and  Australia  they  have  given  their  approval 
to  an  act  which  in  actual  practice  may  become  more  danger- 
ous than  any  weapon  that  has  ever  been  forged  against  them. 
The  only  possible  way  they  could  gain  any  advantage  from 
it  would  be  if  they  were  able  to  elect  the  judge  of  the  Arbi- 
tration Court,  but,  to  obtain  a  political  majority  for  this 
purpose,  they  would  have  to  develop  a  broad  social  pro- 
gram which  would  appeal  to  at  least  a  part  of  the  agricul- 


76  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

turists  as  well  as  to  the  working  people,  but  here  we  turn  to 
the  considerations  to  be  brought  out  in  the  next  chapter. 

Mr.  Charles  Edward  Russell,  as  the  result  of  two  visits 
to  Australasia,  has  very  ably  summed  up  the  Socialist  view 
of  compulsory  arbitration  in  The  Coming  Nation,  of  which 
he  is  joint  editor.  Mr.  Russell  says :  — 

"The  thing  is  a  failure,  greatly  to  the  surprise  of  many  capable 
observers,  and  yet  just  such  a  result  might  have  been  expected  from 
the  beginning,  and  for  two  perfectly  obvious  reasons,  both  of  which, 
strange  to  say,  were  universally  overlooked. 

"In  the  first  place,  the  court  was  nominally  composed  of  three 
persons,  and  really  of  one.  That  one  was  the  judge  appointed  by 
the  government. 

"The  representative  of  the  employers  voted  every  time  for  the 
employers;  the  representative  of  the  unions  voted  every  time  for 
the  unions ;  the  judge  alone  decided,  and  might  as  well  have  con- 
stituted the  whole  court. 

"At  first  the  judge  decided  most  of  the  cases  in  favor  of  the 
policy  of  increasing  wages.  Fine,  again.  Many  wage  scales 
ascended. 

"But  the  judge,  as  a  rule,  did  not  like  his  job.  He  desired  to 
get  to  the  Supreme  Court  as  rapidly  as  possible ;  to  the  Supreme 
Court  where  the  honors  were.  A  succession  of  judges  went  by.  At 
last  came  one  that  agreed  with  the  employers  that  wages  were  too 
high  for  the  welfare  of  the  country.  This  had  long  been  a  com- 
plaint of  the  manufacturers  in  particular,  who  were  fond  of  pointing 
out  how  high  wages  discouraged  the  opening  of  new  factories,  and 
consequently  the  development  of  the  country.  This  judge,  being 
of  the  same  opinion,  apparently,  began  to  decide  the  cases  the  other 
way. 

"Then,  of  a  sudden  the  second  fatal  defect  in  the  system  opened 
up. 

"The  men  grew  restless  under  the  adverse  decisions  of  the  court. 
That  raised  a  new  question. 

"How  are  you  going  to  compel  men  to  work  when  they  do  not 
wish  to  work  under  the  conditions  you  provide  ? 

"  Nobody  had  thought  of  that." 

Referring,  then,  to  the  failure  to  prevent  the  strike 
of  the  slaughterers  against  the  law  in  1907,  or  to  pun- 
ish them  after  they  had  forced  their  employers  to  terms, 
Mr.  Russell  gives  the  Socialist  opinion  of  the  legislation  of 
1908,  passed  to  remedy  this  situation  :  — 

"At  the  next  session  of  Parliament  it  amended  the  law  to  meet 
these  unexpected  emergencies  and  find  a  way  to  compel  men  to  work. 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  77 

"To  strike  after  a  case  had  been  referred  to  the  court  was  now 
made  a  crime,  punishable  by  a  fine,  and  if  the  fine  were  not  paid, 
the  strikers'  goods  could  be  distrained  and  he  could  be  imprisoned. 
Any  labor  union  that  ordered  a  strike  or  allowed  its  members  to 
strike  was  made  subject  to  a  fine  of  $500.  Outside  persons  or  or- 
ganizations that  aided  or  abetted  a  strike  were  made  subject  to 
severe  penalties. 

"  Fine,  again.  But  suppose  the  labor  unions  should  try  to  evade 
the  law  by  withdrawing  from  registry  under  the  act  ?  Government 
thought  once  more,  and  produced  another  amendment  by  which  the 
penalties  for  striking  were  extended  to  all  trades  engaged  in  supplying 
a  utility  or  a  necessity,  whether  such  trades  were  organized  or  not.  \ 

"You  could  hardly  surpass  this  for  ingenuity.  'Supplying  a 
necessity'  would  seem  to  cover  about  everything  under  the  sun  and 
to  make  striking  impossible.  There  must  be  no  more  strikes. 

"Sounds  like  home,  doesn't  it?  To  do  away  with  strikes.  You 
see  the  employing  class,  which  all  around  the  world  gets  what  it 
wants  and  controls  every  government,  had  put  itself  back  of  the 
arbitration  law.  It  had  discovered  that  the  law  could  be  made  to 
be  a  good  thing,  so  it  was  at  the  dictation  of  this  class  that  the 
amendments  were  passed.  What  the  injunction  judges  do  in 
America,  or  try  to  do,  the  law  was  to  do  in  New  Zealand. 

"Except  that  not  Judge  Goff  nor  Judge  Guy,  nor  any  other  in- 
junction judge  of  our  own  happy  clime,  has  dared  to  go  quite  so  far 
as  to  declare  that  all  striking  everywhere  is  a  crime  to  be  punished 
with  imprisonment. 

"How  are  you  going  to  compel  men  to  work?  Why,  thus,  said 
the  government  of  New  Zealand.  Put  them  hi  jail  if  they  do  not 
like  the  terms  of  their  employment." 

Mr.  Russell  then  gives  an  account  of  the  miners'  strike, 
above  referred  to,  which  he  points  out  was  ended  by  the 
labor  department  paying  the  miners'  fines.  He  concludes :  — 

"  Mr.  Edward  Tregear,  a  scholar  and  thinker,  had  filled  for  many 
years  the  place  of  chief  secretary  for  labor.  It  is  not  a  cabinet  office, 
but  comes  next  thereto.  He  is  a  wise  person  and  a  sincere  friend  of 
the  worker,  as  he  has  shown  on  many  occasions.  As  soon  as  he 
heard  that  the  ministry  actually  purposed  to  imprison  the  miners 
because  they  did  not  like  the  terms  of  their  employment,  he  went 
to  the  minister  of  labor  and  earnestly  protested,  protested  with  tears 
in  his  eyes,  as  the  minister  himself  subsequently  testified,  begged, 
argued,  and  pleaded.  No  possible  good  could  come  from  such  rigor, 
and  almost  certainly  it  would  precipitate  grave  disaster. 

"To  all  this  the  minister  was  obdurate.  Then  Mr.  Tregear 
said  that  he  would  resign ;  he  would  not  retain  his  office  and  see 
men  imprisoned  for  exercising  their  inalienable  right  of  choice, 
whether  they  would  or  would  not  work  under  given  conditions. 


78  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"Now  Mr.  Tregear  was  one  of  the  most  popular  men  in  New 
Zealand,  and  his  resignation  under  such  conditions  would  raise  a 
storm  that  no  ministry  would  care  to  face.  Hence  the  government 
was  in  a  worse  situation  than  ever.  On  one  side  it  fronted  a  dan- 
gerous venture  with  the  certainty  of  a  tremendous  handicap  in  the 
resignation  of  the  chief  secretary,  and  on  the  other  hand  was  an 
acknowledgment  that  the  arbitration  law  was  a  failure  and  could 
be  violated  with  impunity. 

"In  this  emergency  decision  was  halted  for  a  few  hours  while  the 
government  people  consulted.  Meantime,  by  quick  and  desperate 
efforts,  the  strike  was  ended,  and  the  men  went  back  to  work. 

"This  left  the  fines  unpaid.  The  labor  department  solved  that 
difficulty  and  allowed  the  defeated  government  to  make  its  escape 
from  a  hopeless  situation  by  paying  the  miners'  fines. 

"To  all  intents  and  purposes  it  was  the  end  of  compulsory  ar- 
bitration in  New  Zealand.  Not  nominally,  for  nominally  the  thing 
goes  on  as  before ;  but  actually.  It  is  only  by  breaking  our  shins 
upon  a  fact  that  most  of  us  ever  learn  anything ;  and  the  exalted 
ministry  of  New  Zealand  had  broken  its  shins  aplenty  on  a  fact  that 
might  have  been  discerned  from  the  start. 

"If  you  are  to  have  compulsory  arbitration,  you  must  compel 
one  side  as  much  as  the  other. 

"But  in  the  existing  system  of  society,  when  you  come  to  com- 
pelling the  workers  to  accept  arbitration's  awards,  you  are  doing 
nothing  in  the  world  except  to  compel  them  to  work,  and,  however 
the  thing  may  be  disguised,  compulsory  work  is  chattel  slavery, 
against  which  the  civilized  world  revolts. 

"This  is  the  way  the  thing  works  out,  and  the  only  way  it  ever 
can  work  out.  There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  compulsory  arbitra- 
tion without  this  ultimate  situation. 

"If,  therefore,  any  one  in  America  believes  in  such  a  plan  for 
the  settlement  of  labor  troubles,  I  invite  the  attention  of  such  a  one 
to  this  plain  record. 

"For  my  own  part,  years  ago  I  was  wont  to  blame  the  labor 
leaders  of  America  because  they  steadfastly  rejected  compulsory 
arbitration,  and  I  now  perceive  them  to  have  been  perfectly  right. 
The  thing  is  impossible."  (3) 

A  somewhat  similar  act  to  the  Australasian  ones,  though 
less  stringent,  has  been  introduced  in  Canada.  The  Canadian 
law,  which  is  a  compromise  between  compulsory  arbitration 
and  compulsory  investigation,  applies  to  mines,  railways, 
and  other  public  utilities.  Strikes  have  been  prevented,  but 
let  us  see  what  benefits  the  employees  have  received.  What- 
ever its  effect  on  wages  and  hours,  the  law  has  the  tendency 
to  weaken  the  unions,  which  hitherto  have  been  the  only 
reliable  means  by  which  employees  were  able  to  advance  their 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  79 

condition.  Not  only  does  it  make  organization  seem  less 
necessary,  but  it  takes  the  most  powerful  weapon  of  the  union, 
the  ability  to  call  a  sudden  strike.  If  we  add  to  this  the  un- 
favorable influence  on  public  opinion  in  case  the  unions  are 
not  contented  with  the  rewards,  and  the  fact  that  the  law 
works  against  the  union  shop,  which  is  the  basis  of  some 
unions,  we  can  understand  the  ground  of  their  hostility. 

"The  Canadian  Labour  Disputes  Investigation  Act"  is 
especially  interesting  and  important  because  it  is  serving  as 
a  model  for  a  campaign  to  introduce  legislation  along  similar 
lines  into  the  United  States.  Already  Mr.  Victor  S.  Clark, 
the  author  of  the  study  of  the  Australian  Labour  Movement, 
to  which  I  have  referred  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter, 
has  been  sent  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Taft  to  investigate 
into  the  working  of  the  act.  Ex-President  Charles  W.  Eliot 
of  Harvard  has  also  advocated  strenuously  and  at  some 
length  a  similar  statute,  and  it  has  been  made  the  basis  for 
the  campaign  in  Massachusetts  and  other  states.  Mr.  Clark 
reported:  "Under  the  conditions  for  which  it  was  devised, 
the  Canadian  law,  in  spite  of  some  setbacks,  is  useful  legisla- 
tion, and  it  promises  more  for  the  future  than  most  meas- 
ures—  perhaps  more  than  any  other  measure — for  promoting 
industrial  peace  by  government  intervention." 

Here  is  the  very  keynote  to  compulsory  arbitration,  accord- 
ing to  its  opponents,  whose  whole  attack  is  based  on  the  fact 
that  its  primary  purpose  is  not  to  improve  the  condition  of 
the  working  people,  but  to  promote  "industrial  peace  by 
government  intervention." 

Mr.  Clark  concedes  that  "possibly  workers  do  sacrifice 
something  of  influence  in  giving  up  sudden  strikes,"  though 
he  claims  that  they  gain  in  other  ways.  "After  such  a  law 
is  once  on  the  statute  books,  however,  it  usually  remains,  and 
in  New  Zealand,  Australia,  and  Canada  it  has  created  a  new 
public  attitude  toward  industrial  disputes.  This  attitude 
is  the  result  of  the  idea  —  readily  grasped  and  generally 
accepted  when  once  clearly  presented  —  that  the  public 
have  an  interest  in  industrial  conflicts  quite  as  immediate 
and  important  in  its  way  as  that  of  the  conflicting  parties. 
//  the  American  people  have  this  truth  vividly  brought  to  their 
attention  by  a  great  strike,  the  hopeful  example  of  the  Canadian 
act  seems  likely,  so  far  as  the  present  experience  shows,  to  prove 
a  guiding  star  in  their  difficulties."  (Italics  mine.) 

In  the  agitation  that  was  made  in  behalf  of  a  similar  law 


80  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

in  Massachusetts,  just  exactly  what  is  meant  by  the  word 
"public"  began  to  appear.  It  refers  not  only  to  the 
consumers  of  the  article  produced  by  the  industry  in  which 
the  strike  occurs,  but  also  to  other  dependent  industries,  to 
the  merchants  of  the  locality  where  the  workmen  live,  and  to 
the  real  estate  interests.  Here,  then,  are  definite  economic 
interests  which  are  concerned  primarily  in  the  prevention 
of  strikes  and  in  the  uninterrupted  operation  of  the  industry, 
and  only  in  a  secondary  way  in  rates  of  wages.  It  is  not  a 
disinterested  and  non-partisan  public;  it  is  not  on  the  side  of 
the  employers  nor  on  the  side  of  the  employees,  but  it  is  opposed 
to  the  most  effective  weapons  the  working  people  have  yet  found 
to  advance  their  interests,  namely,  the  strike  and  the  boycott. 

It  is  said  that  if  the  workers  lose  the  right  to  strike,  the 
employers  lose  the  right  to  lockout.  It  has  been  customary 
to  set  the  lockout  over  against  the  strike  as  being  of  equal 
importance,  but  this  is  not  the  truth.  Employers  can  dis- 
charge their  workingmen  one  at  a  time  when  they  are  dis- 
satisfied with  a  limited  number ;  and  they  can  often  find  a 
business  protest  for  temporarily  shutting  down  or  restricting 
their  output.  To  abolish  strikes,  then,  is  to  take  away  the 
employees'  chief  means  of  offense  or  defense ;  while  to  pre- 
tend to  abolish  strikes  and  lockouts  is  to  leave  in  the  hands  of 
the  employers  the  ability  to  discharge  or  punish  in  other  ways 
the  men  with  whom  they  are  dissatisfied. 

When  it  was  proposed  to  introduce  the  Canadian  law  in 
Massachusetts,  no  unionists  of  prominence  indorsed  it,  but 
it  was  favored  by  a  very  large  number  of  employers,  while 
those  employers  who  objected  did  so  for  widely  scattered 
reasons.  Mr.  Clark  is  probably  right  in  suggesting  that, 
while  such  a  law  will  not  be  enacted  in  the  United  States 
as  things  are  now,  it  is  very  probable  that  it  can  be  secured 
after  some  industrial  crisis  —  and  there  is  little  doubt  that 
President  Eliot  and  perhaps  also  Mr.  Roosevelt,  for  whom 
Mr.  Clark  was  investigating,  and  many  other  influential 
public  men,  are  expecting  this  time  to  arrive  soon. 

The  attitude  of  a  large  minority  of  British  unions  and  of  a 
considerable  part  of  the  British  Socialists  is  similar  to  that  of 
the  Canadian  and  Australian  majority.  When  in  1907 
the  railway  employees  of  Great  Britain  were  for  the  first 
time  sufficiently  aroused  and  organized,  and  on  the  point  of  a 
national  strike,  a  settlement  was  entered  into  through  the 
efforts  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  the  Board  of  Trade  (and  it 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  81 

is  said  with  the  assistance  of  King  Edward)  which  involved 
an  entirely  new  principle  for  that  country.  A  board  was 
constituted  to  settle  this  and  future  strikes  of  which  the 
Master  of  Rolls  and  other  British  functionaries  were  the  lead- 
ing elements.  Actually  the  workers  consented  for  several 
years  to  leave  in  the  hands  of  the  judges  over  whose  election 
and  appointment  they  have  only  an  indirect  and  partial,  if 
indeed  any,  control,  complete  power  over  their  industrial  life. 
The  executive  of  the  Fabian  Society  issued  a  manifesto  con- 
gratulating the  government  on  this  "progressive"  settle- 
ment, though  few  prominent  labor  leaders  were  willing  to  give 
it  their  full  indorsement.  The  Fabian  manifesto  said  that 
the  advance  in  wages  which  could  be  secured  by  the  settle- 
ment "will  undoubtedly  have  been  secured  on  the  trade- 
union  program,  through  the  trade-union  organization, 
by  the  trade  union's  representatives,  and  finally,  in  the  argu- 
ment before  the  abritrator,  by  the  ability  of  the  trade  union's 
secretary."  But  this  settlement  had  nearly  all  the  features 
of  the  Canadian  law  which  I  have  just  mentioned,  and  es- 
pecially in  failing  to  give  any  recognition  to  the  unions, 
left  the  strongest  possible  weapon  in  the  hands  of  their  ene- 
mies. Nevertheless,  more  than  a  third  of  the  members  of 
the  British  Trade  Union  Congress  voted  since  that  time  for  a 
compulsory  arbitration  act,  and  British  radicals  like  Percy 
Alden,  M.P.,  to  say  nothing  of  conservatives,  agitate  for  a 
law  along  New  Zealand  lines.  The  railway  strike  of  1911 
has  decreased  the  popularity  of  this  proposal  among  unionists 
and  Socialists,  but  has  augmented  it  in  still  greater  propor- 
tion among  nearly  all  other  classes.  In  the  meanwhile,  in 
spite  of  the  employees'  efforts,  and  external  concessions  by  the 
employers,  the  power  in  the  newest  railway  conciliation 
scheme  lies  also  in  the  hands  of  the  government  (see  Part 
III,  Chapter  V). 

Statements  by  President  Taft  and  other  influential  Ameri- 
cans lead  us  to  believe  it  will  be  a  very  short  period  of  years 
before  similar  legislation  is  applied  to  this  country,  in  spite 
of  the  hostility  of  the  unions,  or  perhaps  with  the  consent 
of  some  of  the  weaker  among  them,  which  have  little  to  gain 
by  industrial  warfare.  While  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Taft 
predicted  a  controversy  between  capital  and  labor  which 
should  decide  once  and  for  all  how  capital  and  labor  should 
share  the  joint  profits  which  they  created.  In  this  and  many 
similar  utterances  there  is  foreshadowed  the  interference 


82  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

of  the  State.  Indeed,  the  settlement  of  the  Pennsylvania 
coal  strike  in  1903  was  a  clear  example  of  such  interference, 
and  there  is  no  question  that  the  precedents  established  will 
be  followed  up  on  the  next  occasion  of  the  kind  by  some 
arrangement  even  less  advantageous  to  employees  who  now 
almost  universally  feel,  as  the  present  demands  of  the  miner's 
union  show,  that  they  got  the  worst  of  the  former  decision. 

The  railway  and  mining  situations  in  Great  Britain,  and 
the  demand  for  the  government  to  take  some  measure  to 
protect  employees  against  the  "trusts"  in  this  country 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  menace  of  a  great  coal  strike),  promise 
to  make  compulsory  arbitration  an  issue  of  the  immediate 
future.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  now  proposes  that  the  govern- 
ment should  interfere  between  monopolies  and  their  em- 
ployees, is  the  very  man  who  is  responsible  for  the  coal  strike 
tribunal  of  1903,  which  not  only  denounced  sympathetic 
strike  and  secondary  boycott,  but  failed  to  protect  the  men 
against  discrimination  on  account  of  their  unionism.  Were 
he  or  any  one  like  him  President,  the  institution  of  govern- 
ment wage  boards  would  be  dreaded  like  the  plague. 

Similarly  Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  in  Great  Britain,  recog- 
nizes the  extreme  seriousness  of  the  situation.  His  position 
is  ably  summed  up  by  the  Saturday  Evening  Post :  — 

"  Winston  Churchill  has  propounded  a  capital-and-labor  puzzle  to 
his  British  constituents. 

"  To  a  modern  state,  he  says  in  substance,  railroad  transportation 
is  a  necessity  of  life  —  and  how  literally  true  this  is  of  England  was 
shown  in  the  general  strike  of  last  August,  when  the  food  supply 
in  some  localities  ran  down  to  only  a  few  days'  requirements.  So 
the  government  cannot  permit  railroad  transportation  to  be  para- 
lyzed indefinitely  by  a  strike.  It  cannot  sit  by  and  see  communities 
starve.  A  point  will  soon  be  reached  where  it  must  intervene  and 
force  resumption  of  transportation. 

"  Strikes,  however,  form  one  of  the  modern  means  of  collective  bar- 
gaining between  employer  and  employees.  They  are,  in  fact,  the 
workmen's  final  and  most  effective  resource  in  driving  a  bargain. 
Denied  the  right  to  strike,  labor  unions  would  be  so  many  wooden 
cannon  at  which  employers  could  laugh.  If  the  employer  knew 
absolutely  that  the  men  could  not  strike,  he  might  offer  any  terms 
he  pleased.  In  wage  bargaining  the  men  would  not  stand  on  a 
level  footing,  but  be  bound  and  gagged. 

"  If,  then,  the  government  takes  away,  or  seriously  restricts,  the 
right  of  the  men  to  strike,  isn't  it  bound  to  step  into  the  breach  and 
readjust  the  balance  between  them  and  the  employer,  by  compelling 


COMPULSORY  ARBITRATION  83 

the  employer  to  pay  them  fair  wages  ?  There  can  be  no  free  bar- 
gaining if  it  is  known  that  at  a  certain  point  the  government  will 
intervene  on  one  side.  Must  it  not,  then,  also  be  known  that  at 
a  certain  point  the  government  will  intervene  on  the  other  side  and 
compel  payment  of  adequate  wages  ? 

"Mr.  Churchill  carries  his  puzzle  only  that  far.  On  our  own 
account  we  add,  How  far  will  that  leave  us  from  regulation  of  wages 
as  well  as  of  rates  by  the  government,  and  how  far  will  that  leave 
us  from  government  ownership?"  (4) 

In  a  word,  Mr.  Churchill's  remedy  for  the  evils  of  "State 
Socialism"  is  more  "State  Socialism"  —  and  undoubtedly 
there  is  an  inevitable  trend  in  that  direction.  But  the  govern- 
ment railway  strikes  of  France,  Austria,  Italy,  Hungary, 
and  other  countries  ought  to  show  him  that  his  remedy, 
advantageous  as  it  may  be  from  many  standpoints,  is  scarcely 
to  be  considered  even  as  a  first  step  towards  the  solution  of 
the  labor  problem.  As  long  as  capitalists  continue  to  control 
government,  "State  Socialism,"  on  the  contrary,  makes  the 
strike  more  necessary,  more  decisive,  and  invaluable,  not 
only  to  employees,  but  to  every  class  that  suffers  from  the 
government  or  the  economic  system  it  supports. 

The  most  representative  of  American  Socialists,  Eugene 
V.  Debs,,  has  given  us  an  excellent  characterization  of  this 
movement  as  it  appears  to  most  Socialists. 

"Successful  leaders  are  wise  enough  to  follow  the  people.  For 
instance,  the  following  paragraph  is  to  the  point :  — 

'  Ultimately  I  believe  that  this  control  of  corporations  should 
undoubtedly,  directly  or  indirectly,  extend  to  dealing  with  all  ques- 
tions connected  with  their  treatment  of  their  employees,  including 
the  wages,  the  hours  of  labor,  and  the  like.' 

"And  what  Socialist  made  himself  ridiculous  by  such  a  foolish 
utterance  ?  No  Socialist  at  all ;  only  a  paragraph  from  his  latest 
article  on  the  trusts  by  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Five  years  ago,  or 
when  he  was  still  in  office  and  had  the  power,  he  would  not  have 
dared  to  make  that  statement.  But  he  finds  it  politically  safe  and 
expedient  to  make  it  now.  It  is  not  at  all  a  radical  statement.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  simply  the  echo  of  E.  H.  Gary,  that  is  to  say, 
John  Pierpont  Morgan,  president  of  all  the  trusts. 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  now  proposes  that  Bismarck  attempted  in  Ger- 
many forty  years  ago  to  thwart  the  Socialist  movement,  and  that 
is  State  Socialism,  so  called,  which  is  in  fact  the  most  despotic  and 
degrading  form  of  capitalism. 

"President  Roosevelt,  who  is  popularly  supposed  to  be  hostile 
to  the  trusts,  is  in  truth  their  best  friend.  He  would  have  the 
government,  the  capitalist  government,  of  course,  practically 


84  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

operate  the  trusts  and  turn  the  profits  over  to  their  idle  owners. 
This  would  mean  release  from  responsibility  and  immunity  of  pros- 
ecution for  the  trust  owners,  while  at  the  same  time  the  government 
would  have  to  serve  as  strikebreaker  for  the  trust  owners,  and  the  armed 
forces  of  the  government  would  be  employed  to  keep  the  working 
class  in  subjection. 

"If  this  were  possible,  it  would  mark  the  halfway  ground  between 
industrial  despotism  and  industrial  democracy.  But  it  is  not 
possible,  at  least  it  is  possible  only  temporarily,  long  enough  to 
demonstrate  its  failure.  The  expanding  industrial  forces  now 
transforming  society,  realigning  political  parties,  and  reshaping  the 
government  itself  cannot  be  fettered  in  any  such  artificial  arrange- 
ment as  Mr.  Roosevelt  proposes.  These  forces,  with  the  rising  and 
awakening  working  class  in  alliance  with  them,  will  sweep  all  such 
barriers  from  the  track  of  evolution  until  finally  they  can  find  full 
expression  in  industrial  freedom  and  social  democracy. 

"In  this  scheme  of  State  Socialism,  or  rather  State  capitalism, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  fails  to  inform  us  how  the  idle  owners  of  the  trusts 
are  to  function  except  as  profit  absorbers  and  parasites.  In  that 
capacity  they  can  certainly  be  dispensed  with  entirely  and  that  is 
precisely  what  will  happen  when  the  evolution  now  in  progress  cul- 
minates in  the  reorganization  of  society."  (5)  (My  italics.) 


CHAPTER  VI 

AGRARIAN  "STATE  SOCIALISM"  IN 
AUSTRALASIA 

AUSTRALIA  and  New  Zealand  are  commonly  taken  as  the 
most  advanced  of  all  countries  in  government  ownership, 
labor  reforms,  and  "State  Socialism."  Indeed  they  are 
often  pictured  as  almost  ideally  governed,  and  the  credulity 
with  which  such  pictures  are  received  shows  the  widespread 
popularity  of  "State  Socialism." 

The  central  principle  of  the  Australian  and  New  Zealand 
reforms  is,  however,  not  government  ownership  or  compul- 
sory arbitration,  as  commonly  supposed,  but  a  land  policy. 
By  means  of  a  progressive  or  graduated  land  tax  it  is  hoped 
to  break  up  all  large  estates  and  to  establish  a  large  number 
of  small  proprietors.  When  it  was  said  to  Mr.  Fisher,  the 
new  "Labour  Party"  Premier  of  Australia,  that  this  policy 
was  not  Socialism,  he  replied  laconically,  "It  is  my  kind  of 
Socialism."  (1) 

The  "State  Socialism"  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand 
is  fundamentally  agrarian;  its  real  basis  is  a  modernized 
effort  to  establish  a  nation  of  small  farm  owners  and  to  pro- 
mote their  welfare. 

Next  in  importance  and  closely  connected  with  the  policy 
of  gradually  bringing  about  the  division  of  the  land  among 
small  proprietors,  is  the  policy  of  the  government  ownership 
of  monopolies.  Already  New  Zealand  is  in  the  banking 
business,  and  the  Australian  Labour  Party  proposes  a  national 
bank  for  Australia.  National  life  and  fire  insurance  are 
instituted  in  New  Zealand ;  the  same  measures  are  proposed 
for  Australia.  Already  many  railroads  are  nationally  owned, 
and  it  is  proposed  that  others  be  nationalized.  Already 
extensive  irrigation  projects  have  been  undertaken;  it  is 
proposed  that  the  policy  should  be  carried  out  on  a  wider 
scale.  But  the  Australian  Labour  Party  is  not  fanatical  upon 
this  form  of  "State  Socialism."  It  does  not  argue,  like  the 
British  Independent  Labour  Party,  that  the  civilization  of  a 
community  can  be  measured  by  the  extent  of  collective 

86 


86  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

ownership,  for  Australasia's  experience  has  already  shown  the 
immediate  and  practical  limits  of  this  kind  of  a  movement. 
New  Zealand  is  already  burdened  with  a  very  large  national 
debt ;  Australia  proposes  that  its  debt  shall  be  increased  only 
for  the  purpose  of  building  commercially  profitable  railways 
or  irrigation  schemes,  etc.,  and  not  in  any  case  for  the  purpose 
of  national  defense  or  for  other  investments  not  immediately 
remunerative. 

The  national  debt,  aside  from  that  based  on  profit-making 
governmental  undertakings,  like  railways,  is  to  be  reduced, 
and  nationalization  of  other  monopolies  is  not  to  be  under- 
taken until  new  measures  of  taxation  have  become  effective. 
These  are  a  graduated  land  tax  and  an  extension  of  the  grad- 
uated income  and  inheritance  taxes.  (2) 

The  program  concludes  with  vigorous  measures  for  national 
defense.  Australia  is  to  own  her  navy  (supported  not  by 
loans,  but  by  taxation),  and  is  to  be  as  independent  as  prac- 
ticable of  Great  Britain.  She  feels  a  need  for  military 
defense,  but  she  does  not  propose  to  have  a  military  caste, 
however  small ;  the  whole  people  is  to  be  made  military,  the 
Labour  Party  stands  for  a  citizen  defense  force  and  not  for 
a  professional  army.  Finally,  Australia  is  to  be  kept  for 
the  white  race,  especially  for  British  and  other  peoples  that 
the  present  inhabitants  consider  desirable. 

There  remains  that  part  of  the  program  which  has  attracted 
the  most  attention,  namely,  the  labor  reforms :  working- 
men's  insurance,  an  eight-hour  day,  and  an  increase  of  the 
powers  of  the  compulsory  arbitration  courts.  Already  in 
fixing  wages  it  has  been  necessary  for  the  court  to  decide 
what  is  a  fair  profit  to  the  employers,  so  profits  are  already 
to  some  degree  being  regulated.  It  has  been  found  that  prices 
and  the  cost  of  living  are  rising  still  more  rapidly  than  wages ; 
it  is  proposed  that  prices  should  also  be  regulated  by  with- 
drawing the  protection  of  the  customs  tariff  from  those 
industries  that  charge  an  unduly  high  price. 

I  have  mentioned  the  labor  element  of  the  program  last, 
for  the  Australian  Labour  Party  is  a  democratic  rather  than 
merely  a  labor  movement.  The  Worker's  Union,  and  the 
Sheep  Shearer's  Society  of  the  Eastern  States,  enrolled  from 
the  first  all  classes  of  ranch  employees,  and  "even  common 
country  storekeepers  and  small  farmers."  (3)  Some  of 
the  miners'  organizations  have  been  built  on  similarly  broad 
lines,  and  these  two  unions  constitute  the  backbone  of  the 


AGRARIAN  "STATE  SOCIALISM \\  IN  AUSTRALASIA    87 

Labour  Party.  The  original  program  of  the  New  South 
Wales  Labour  Electoral  League,  which  formed  the  nucleus 
of  the  Labour  Party  in  1891,  proposed  to  bring  together  "all 
electors  in  favor  of  democratic  and  progressive  legislation," 
and  was  nearly  as  broad  as  the  present  program;  that  is  to 
say,  it  was  by  no  means  confined  to  labor  reforms. 

But  are  there  any  other  features  in  the  Australian  situa- 
tion, besides  the  dominating  importance  of  the  land  question, 
that  rob  this  program  of  its  significance  for  the  rest  of  the 
world?  It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  are.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  only  this  recent  social  reform  movement  that  has 
begun  to  put  New  Zealand  and  Australia  under  real  demo- 
cratic government,  and  this  democratization  is  scarcely  yet 
complete,  since  the  constitutions  of  some  of  the  separate 
Australian  States  and  Tasmania  contain  extremely  undemo- 
cratic elements ;  while  the  federal  government  is  dominated 
by  a  Supreme  Court,  as  in  the  United  States.  Consequently 
it  is  only  a  few  years  in  some  of  the  States  since  such  elemen- 
tary democratic  institutions  as  free  schools  were  instituted. 
It  is  evident,  on  the  other  hand,  that  countries  establishing 
democratic  or  semidemocratic  institutions  under  the  condi- 
tions prevailing  in  the  world  as  late  as  1890,  when  the  great 
change  took  place  in  New  Zealand,  or  during  the  decade, 
1900-1910,  when  the  political  overturn  gave  Australia  to 
the  Labour  Party,  should  be  more  advanced  than  France, 
Germany,  Great  Britain,  or  the  United  States,  where  the 
latest  great  overturn  in  the  democratic  direction  occurred 
in  each  instance  a  generation  or  more  ago. 

So  also  Australia  and  New  Zealand  which,  on  the  one 
hand,  are  still  suffering  from  the  disadvantage  of  having 
lived  until  recently  under  a  system  of  large  landed  estates, 
on  the  other  hand  have  the  advantage  of  dealing  with  the 
land  question  in  a  period  when  the  governments  of  these 
new  countries  are  becoming  rich  enough,  through  their  own 
enterprises,  to  exist  independently  of  land  sales,  and  when 
farmers  are  more  willing  to  increase  the  power  of  their  govern- 
ments, both  in  order  to  protect  themselves  from  the  encroach- 
ments of  capital  and  of  labor,  and  directly  to  advance  the 
interests  of  agriculture.  The  campaign  to  break  up  the  large 
estates  has  kept  the  farmers  engrossed  in  politics,  and  this 
has  occurred  in  a  period 'when  industrial  organization  has 
made  possible  a  whole  program  of  "Constructive  State 
Socialism."  By  taking  up  this  program  the  farmers  and 


those  who  wished  to  become  farmers  have  at  once  looked  to 
their  own  interests  and  secured  the  political  support  of  other 
small  capitalists  and  even  of  a  large  part  of  the  workingmen. 

But  working  against  the  nationalization  of  the  unearned 
increment,  against  the  policy  of  leasing  instead  of  selling  the 
public  land,  central  features  of  every  advanced  "State 
Socialist"  policy,  is  the  fact  that  the  small  farmers,  daily 
becoming  more  numerous,  hope  that  they  might  themselves 
reap  this  increment  through  private  ownership.  In  no 
national  legislation  is  it  proposed  to  tax  away  this  increment 
in  agricultural  land,  which  preponderates  both  in  New 
Zealand  and  Australia.  But,  while  in  other  countries  the 
agricultural  population  is  decreasing  relatively  to  the  whole, 
in  New  Zealand  the  settlement  of  the  country  by  the  small 
farmers  has  hitherto  led  it  to  increase,  and  the  new  legis- 
lation in  Australia  must  soon  have  the  same  result.  So,  in 
spite  of  the  favorable  auspices,  it  seems  that  the  climax  of 
the  "State  Socialism,"  the  transformation  of  the  small 
farmer  into  a  tenant  of  the  State  is  not  yet  to  be  undertaken, 
either  in  the  shape  of  land  nationalization  or  in  the  taxing 
away  of  unearned  increment.  And  while  the  Australian 
Labour  Party  as  an  organization  favors  nationalization,  a 
large  part  of  those  who  vote  for  this  party  do  not,  and  its 
leaders  have  felt  that  to  have  advocated  nationalization 
hitherto  would  have  meant  that  they  would  have  failed  to 
gain  control  of  the  government.  And  in  proportion  as  the 
new  land  tax  creates  new  farmers,  the  prospects  will  be  worse 
than  they  are  to-day. 

The  existing  land  laws  of  New  Zealand  are  extremely  mod- 
erate steps  in  the  direction  of  nationalization.  In  1907, 
after  the  best  land  had  been  taken  up,  a  system  of  66-year 
leases  was  introduced,  but  only  as  a  voluntary  alternative 
to  purchase.  After  1908  the  annual  purchases  of  large 
estates  were  divided  into  small  lots  and  leased  for  terms  of 
33  years,  but  this  applies  only  to  a  relatively  small  amount 
of  land.  It  was  only  in  1907  that  the  graduated  land  tax 
began  to  be  enforced  in  a  way  automatically  to  break  up  the 
large  estates  as  it  had  been  expected  to  do,  and  it  was  only 
in  1910  that  the  new  and  more  heavily  graduated  scale  went 
into  effect.  And  finally  it  was  only  in  1907  that  large  land- 
owners were  forbidden  to  purchase,  even  indirectly,  govern- 
ment land.  It  has  taken  all  these  years  even  to  discourage 
large  estates  effectively,  to  say  nothing  of  nationalization. 


AGRARIAN  "STATE  SOCIALISM"  IN  AUSTRALASIA    89 

"Some  writers  have  predicted  that  the  appetite  for  reform  by 
taxation  will  grow,  and  that  the  taxation  will  be  increased  and  the 
exemptions  diminished  until  all  the  rent  will  be  taken  and  the  land 
practically  confiscated,  according  to  the  proposals  of  Henry  George. 
But  the  landless  man,  when  he  becomes  a  landholder,  ceases  to  be 
a  single  taxer,  and  is  strongly  opposed  to  Socialism.  The  land  legis- 
lation of  New  Zealand,  although  apparently  Socialistic,  is  producing 
results  directly  opposed  to  Socialism  by  converting  a  lot  of  dis- 
satisfied people  into  stanch  upholders  of  private  ownership  of  land 
and  other  forms  of  private  property.  The  small  farmers,  then,  are 
breaking  away  from  their  former  allies,  the  working  people  of  the 
towns,  who  now  find  themselves  in  the  minority,  but  who  are  in- 
creasing in  numbers  and  who  will  demand,  sooner  or  later,  a  large 
share  in  the  product  of  industry  as  the  price  of  loyalty  to  the  capital- 
istic system."  (4) 

Without  land  nationalization  the  process  of  nationalizing 
industry  cannot  be  expected  to  proceed  faster  than  it  pays 
for  itself  —  for  we  cannot  reckon  as  part  of  the  national  profits 
the  increased  land  values  national  enterprises  bring  about. 
Nor  will  capitalist  collectivism  at  this  stage  proceed  even  this 
fast.  Not  only  do  the  small  taxpayers  oppose  the  govern- 
ment going  into  debt,  but  as  taxpayers  they  are  responsible 
for  all  deficiencies,  and  they  want  only  such  governmental 
enterprises  as  both  produce  a  surplus  and  a  sufficient  one  to 
pay  the  deficits  of  the  nonproductive  departments  of  govern- 
ment. To-day  only  about  one  fifth  of  the  taxpayers  pay 
either  land  or  inheritance  taxes.  But  the  increasing  military 
expenditures  and  the  greater  difficulty  of  securing  large  sums 
by  indirect  taxation  will  increase  this  proportion.  It  is 
likely,  then,  that  State  enterprises  which,  under  private  capi- 
talism, were  used  recklessly  as  aids  to  land  speculation  will 
now  be  required,  as  in  Germany  and  other  continental 
countries,  to  produce  a  surplus  to  relieve  taxpayers.  Private 
capitalism  used  the  State  for  promoting  the  private  interests 
of  its  directors,  State  capitalism  uses  it  to  produce  profits 
for  its  shareholders,  the  small  farmers,  as  taxpayers,  or  in 
the  form  of  profits  distributed  among  them  as  consumers. 
Only  as  the  government  begins  to  take  a  considerable  share 
of  that  increased  value  in  land  which  nearly  every  public 
undertaking  brings  about,  will  all  wisely  managed  govern- 
ment enterprises  produce  such  profits. 

The  advance  of  "State  Socialism,"  though  it  has  several 
other  aspects,  can  be  roughly  measured  by  the  number  of 
government  enterprises  and  employees.  The  railways, 


90  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

telegraphs,  and  the  few  government-owned  mines  of  New 
Zealand,  have  been  calculated  to  employ  about  one  eighth 
of  the  population,  a  greater  proportion  than  in  America  or 
Great  Britain,  but  scarcely  greater  than  in  Germany  or  France 
—  and  not  a  very  great  stride  even  towards  "State  Social- 
ism." And  it  seems  likely  that  the  present  proportion  in 
New  Zealand  will  remain  for  some  time  where  it  is.  Gov- 
ernment banking,  steamships,  bakeries,  and  the  government 
monopoly  of  the  sale  of  liquor  and  tobacco  might  not  prove 
immediately  profitable,  and  are  less  heard  of  than  formerly. 

Where  "State  Socialism"  has  proceeded  such  a  little  dis- 
tance, the  material  benefits  it  promises  to  labor  (though  in 
a  lesser  proportion  than  to  other  classes)  have  not  yet  ac- 
crued. "It  must  be  admitted,"  write  Le  Rossignol  and 
Stewart,  "that  the  benefits  of  land  reform  and  other  Liberal 
legislation  have  accrued  chiefly  to  the  owners  of  land  and 
other  forms  of  property,  and  the  condition  of  the  landless  and 
propertyless  wage  earners  has  not  been  much  improved." 
Indeed,  the  condition  of  the  workers  is  little,  if  any,  better 
than  in  America.  Mr.  Clark  writes:  "The  general  welfare 
of  the  working  classes  in  Australasia  does  not  differ  widely 
from  that  in  the  United  States.  The  hours  of  work  are  fewer 
in  most  occupations,  but  the  wage  per  hour  is  less  than  in 
America.  The  cost  of  living  is  about  the  same  in  both  coun- 
tries. There  appears  to  be  as  much  poverty  in  the  cities  of 
New  Zealand  as  in  the  cities  of  the  same  size  in  the  United 
States,  and  as  many  people  of  large  wealth."  It  is  no  doubt 
true,  as  these  writers  say,  that,  of  the  people  classed  as 
propertyless,  "many  are  young,  industrious,  and  well-paid 
wage  earners ;  who,  if  they  have  health  and  good  luck  may 
yet  acquire  a  competency"  in  this  as  in  any  other  new  coun- 
try. Yet  it  is  only  to  those  who  "have  saved  something," 
i.e.  to  property  holders,  that  the  State  really  lends  a  help- 
ing hand. 

Even  when  New  Zealand  becomes  an  industrial  country, 
the  writers  quoted  calculate  that  "it  should  be  possible  for 
the  party  of  property  to  attach  to  itself  the  more  efficient 
among  the  working  class,  by  giving  them  high  wages,  short 
hours,  pleasant  conditions  of  labor,  opportunities  for  promo- 
tion, a  chance  to  acquire  property,  insurance  benefits,  and 
greater  advantages  of  every  kind  than  they  could  gain  under 
any  form  of  Socialism.  If  this  can  be  done,  the  Socialists 
will  be  in  a  hopeless  minority." 


AGRARIAN  "STATE  SOCIALISM"  IN  AUSTRALASIA     91 

Here  we  have  in  a  few  words  the  universal  labor  policy 
of  "State  Socialism."  Labor  reforms  are  to  be  given  to  the 
working  class  first,  to  encourage  in  them  as  long  as  possible 
the  hope  to  rise;  second,  when  this  is  no  longer  effective,  to 
make  the  upper  layers  contented,  and  finally  to  "increase 
industrial  efficiency,"  as  these  same  writers  say  —  but  at 
no  time  to  put  the  workers  on  a  level  with  the  property- 
owning  classes. 

Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  do  more  on  a  national  scale,  as 
these  writers  point  out,  for  both  capital  and  labor  are  inter- 
national. If  "State  Socialism"  were  carried  to  the  point 
of  equalizing  the  share  of  labor,  either  immigration  would  be 
attracted  until  wages  were  lowered  again,  or  capital  would 
emigrate,  or  the  nation  would  have  to  defend  its  exclusiveness 
by  being  prepared  for  war. 

"It  is  hard  to  see  how  any  country,  whether  Socialistic  or  in- 
dividualistic in  its  industrial  organization,  can  long  keep  its  advan- 
tage over  other  countries  without  some  restriction  of  immigration. 
A  thoroughgoing  experiment  in  collectivism,  therefore,  could  not  be 
made  under  favorable  conditions  in  New  Zealand  or  any  other 
country,  unless  that  country  were  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  or  unless  the  whole  world  made  the  same  experiment  at  the 
same  time." 

As  between  comparative  isolation  possibly  in  the  near 
future  and  world-wide  or  at  least  international  Socialism, 
certainly  many  years  ahead,  the  Australian  Labour  Party, 
under  similar  circumstances  to  that  of  New  Zealand,  has 
chosen  to  attempt  comparative  isolation.  It  does  not  yet 
propose  to  keep  out  immigrants,  but  it  makes  a  beginning 
with  all  non-white  races,  and  it  stands  for  a  policy  of  high 
protection  and  a  larger  army  and  navy.  Naturally  it  does 
not  even  seek  admission  into  the  International  Socialist 
Congress,  where  if  any  Socialist  principle  is  more  insisted 
upon  than  another  it  is  Marx's  declaration  that  the  Socialists 
are  to  be  distinguished  from  the  other  working  class  parties 
only  by  the  fact  that  they  represent  the  interests  of  the  entire 
working  class  independently  of  nationality  or  of  groups 
within  the  nation. 

Moreover,  the  militarism  necessary  to  enforce  isolation 
may  cost  the  nation,  capitalists  and  workers  alike,  far  more 
heavily  than  to  leave  their  country  open  to  trade  and  immi- 
gration. Indeed,  it  must  lead,  not  to  industrial  democracy, 
or  even  to  capitalistic  progress,  but  to  stagnation  and  reac- 


92  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

tion.  The  policy  of  racial  exclusion  will  not  only  increase 
the  dangers  of  war,  but  it  will  bring  little  positive  benefit 
to  labor,  even  of  a  purely  material  and  temporary  kind,  since 
the  farming  majority  will  not  allow  it  to  be  extended  to  the 
white  race.  Instead  of  restricting  immigration,  the  new  gov- 
ernment projects  require  a  thicker  settlement,  and  everything 
is  being  done  to  encourage  settlers  of  means  and  agricultural 
experience,  and  we  cannot  question  that  the  coming  of  white 
laborers  will  be  encouraged  when  they  are  needed. 

The  size  of  the  farms  the  government  is  promoting  in  New 
Zealand  proves  that  the  country  is  deliberately  preparing 
for  a  class  of  landless  agricultural  laborers,  and  Australia 
is  following  the  example.  Since  these  new  farms  average 
something  like  two  hundred  acres,  we  must  realize  that  as 
soon  as  they  are  under  thorough  cultivation  they  will  require 
one  or  more  farm  laborers  in  each  case,  to  be  obtained  chiefly 
from  abroad,  producing  a  community  resting  neither  on 
"State  Socialism"  nor  even  on  a  pioneer  basis  of  economic 
democracy  and  approximate  equality  of  opportunity  similar 
to  that  which  prevailed  during  the  period  of  free  land  in  our 
Western  States. 

Unmistakable  signs  show  that  in  New  Zealand  an  agrarian 
oligarchy  by  no  means  friendly  to  labor  has  already  estab- 
lished itself.  Even  the  compulsory  arbitration  act  which 
bears  anything  but  heavily  on  employers  in  general,  is  not  ap- 
plied to  agriculture.  After  two  years  of  consideration  it 
was  decided  in  1908  that  the  law  should  not  apply  on  the 
ground  that  "it  was  impracticable  to  find  any  definite  hours 
for  the  daily  work  of  general  farm  hands,"  and  that  "the 
alleged  grievances  of  the  farm  laborers  were  insufficient  to 
justify  interference  with  the  whole  farming  industry  of 
Canterbury"  (the  district  included  7000  farms).  Whatever 
we  may  think  of  the  first  justification,  the  second  certainly 
is  a  curious  piece  of  reasoning  for  a  compulsory  arbitration 
court,  and  must  be  taken  simply  to  mean  that  the  employing 
farmers  are  sufficiently  powerful  politically  to  escape  the 
law.  The  working  people  very  naturally  protested  against 
this  "despotic  proceeding,"  which  denied  such  protection 
as  the  law  gave  to  the  largest  section  of  workers  in  the 
Dominion. 

What  is  the  meaning,  then,  of  the  victory  of  a  "Labour 
Party"  in  Australia  ?  Chiefly  that  every  citizen  of  Australia 
who  has  sufficient  savings  is  to  be  given  a  chance  to  own  a 


AGRARIAN  "STATE  SOCIALISM \\  IN  AUSTRALASIA    93 

farm.  A  large  and  prosperous  community  of  farmers  is  to 
be  built  up  by  government  aid.  Even  without  "State 
Socialism"  or  labor  reform  the  working  people  would  share 
temporarily  in  this  prosperity  as  they  did  to  a  large  degree 
in  that  of  the  United  States  immediately  after  the  Civil  War, 
until  the  free  land  began  to  disappear.  It  was  impossible 
to  pay  exceptionally  low  wages  to  a  workingman  who  could 
enter  into  farming  with  a  few  months'  notice. 

The  Labour  Party  hopes  to  use  nationalization  of  monop- 
olies and  the  compulsory  regulation  of  wages  to  insure  per- 
manently to  the  working  classes  their  share  of  the  benefit 
of  the  new  prosperity.  How  much  farther  such  measures  will 
go  when  the  agricultural  element  again  becomes  dominant 
is  the  question.  It  is  already  evident  that  the  Australian 
reform  movement,  like  that  of  New  Zealand,  includes,  or  at 
least  favors,  the  same  class  of  employing  farmers.  The  fact 
that  a  Labour  Party  is  in  the  opposition  in  New  Zealand, 
while  in  Australia  a  Labour  Party  has  led  in  the  reforms 
and  now  rules  the  country,  should  not  blind  us  to  the  farmers' 
influence.  The  very  terms  of  the  graduated  land  tax  and 
the  value  of  the  farms  chosen  for  exemption  show  mathe- 
matically the  influence,  not  alone  of  the  small,  but  even  the 
middle-sized  farmers.  Estates  of  less  than  $25,000  in  value 
are  exempt,  and  those  valued  at  less  than  $50,000  are  to  be 
taxed  less  than  one  per  cent.  Such  farms,  as  a  rule,  must  have 
one  or  more  laborers.  Will  these  employees  come  in  under 
the  compulsory  arbitration  law  ?  If  they  do,  will  they  get 
much  benefit?  The  experience  of  New  Zealand  and  the 
present  outlook  in  Australia  do  not  lead  us  to  expect  that  they 
will. 

Many  indications  point  to  a  coming  realignment  of  parties 
such  as  was  recently  seen  in  New  Zealand,  when  in  1909  it 
was  decided  to  form  an  opposition  Labour  Party.  And  it  is 
likely  to  come,  as  in  New  Zealand,  when  the  large  estates 
are  well  broken  up  and  the  agricultural  element  can  govern 
or  get  all  they  want  without  the  aid  of  the  working  people. 
Already  the  Australian  Labour  Party  is  getting  ready  for  the 
issue.  Its  leaders  have  kept  the  proposed  land  nationaliza- 
tion in  the  background,  because  they  believe  it  cannot  yet 
obtain  a  majority.  But  it  may  be  that  the  party  itself  is 
now  ready  to  fight  this  issue  out  on  a  Socialist  basis,  even  if, 
like  the  Socialist  parties  in  Europe,  such  a  decision  promises 
to  delay  for  a  generation  their  control  of  the  government. 


94  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

If  the  party  is  ready,  it  has  the  machinery  to  bring  its  leaders 
to  time,  as  it  has  done  on  previous  occasions.  For  it  already 
resembles  the  Socialist  parties  in  Europe  in  this,  that  it  makes 
all  its  candidates  responsible  to  the  party  and  not  to  their 
constituents.  That  is  to  say,  while  it  does  not  represent  the 
working  people  exclusively,  it  is  a  class  organization  standing 
for  the  interests  of  that  group  of  classes  which  has  joined  its 
ranks,  and  for  other  classes  of  the  community  only  in  so  far 
as  their  interests  happen  to  be  the  same. 

Already  the  majority  of  the  Labour  Party  voters  are 
undoubtedly  working  people.  When  it  takes  a  definite 
position  on  the  land  question,  favoring  one-family  farms  and 
short  leases  or  else  cooperative,  municipal,  or  national  large- 
scale  operation,  and  states  clearly  that  it  intends  to  use 
compulsory  arbitration  to  advance  wages  indefinitely,  includ- 
ing those  of  farm  laborers,  there  is  every  probability  that, 
having  lost  the  support  of  the  employing  farmers,  it  will 
gradually  take  its  place  as  a  party  of  permanent  opposition 
to  capitalism,  like  the  Socialist  parties  of  Europe  —  until 
industry  finally  and  decisively  surpasses  agriculture,  and  the 
industrial  working  class  really  becomes  the  most  powerful 
element  in  society. 

Space  does  not  permit  the  tracing  of  the  "State  Socialist "  tendency 
in  other  countries  than  Great  Britain,  the  United  States,  and  Austral- 
asia. Originally  a  brief  chapter  was  here  inserted  showing  the  similar 
tendencies  in  Germany.  This  is  now  omitted,  but  the  frequent  ref- 
erence to  Germany  later  in  dealing  with  the  Socialist  movement 
makes  a  brief  statement  of  the  German  situation  essential.  For 
this  purpose  it  will  be  sufficient  to  quote  a  few  of  the  principal  state- 
ments of  the  excellent  summary  and  analysis  by  William  C.  Dreher 
entitled  "The  German  Drift  towards  Socialism": 

"The  German  Reichstag  passed  a  law  in  May,  1910,  for  the  regu- 
lation of  the  potash  trade,  a  law  which  goes  further  in  the  direction 
of  Socialism  than  any  previous  legislation  in  Germany.  It  assigns 
to  each  mine  a  certain  percentage  of  the  total  production  of  the 
country,  and  lays  a  prohibitory  tax  upon  what  it  produces  in  excess 
of  this  allotment.  It  fixes  the  maximum  price  for  the  product  in 
the  home  market,  and  prohibits  selling  abroad  at  a  lower  price. 
A  government  bureau  supervises  the  industry,  sees  that  the  prices 
and  allotments  are  observed,  examines  new  mines  to  determine  their 
capacity,  and  readjusts  allotments  as  new  mines  reach  the  producing 
stage.  .  .  . 

"But  the  radical  features  of  the  law  are  not  completed  in  the 
foregoing  description.  The  bill  having  reduced  potash  prices,  the 
mine  owners  threatened  to  recoup  themselves  by  reducing  wages. 


AGRARIAN  "STATE  SOCIALISM'.'  IN  AUSTRALASIA    95 

But  the  members  of  the  Reichstag  were  not  to  be  balked  by  such 
threats ;  they  could  legislate  about  wages  just  as  easily  as  about 
prices  and  allotments.  So  they  amended  the  bill  by  providing 
that  if  any  owner  should  reduce  wages  without  the  consent  of  his 
employees,  his  allotment  should  be  restricted  in  the  corresponding 
proportion.  .  .  . 

"While  the  law  is  indeed  decidedly  Socialistic  in  tendency,  it  is 
not  yet  Socialism.  It  hedges  private  property  about  with  sharper 
restrictions  than  would  be  thought  justifiable  in  countries  where, 
as  in  the  United  States,  the  creed  of  individualism  is  still  vigorous ; 
and  yet  it  is,  in  effect,  hardly  more  than  a  piece  of  social  reform 
legislation,  though  a  more  radical  one  than  we  have  hitherto  seen. .  .  . 

"In  Germany,  'the  individual  withers'  and  the  world  of  State 
and  Society,  with  its  multifarious  demands  upon  him,  '  is  more  and 
more.'  This  is,  of  course,  a  Socialistic  tendency,  but  the  substitute 
that  the  Germans  are  finding  for  unlimited  competition  is  not  radical 
Socialism,  but  organization.  .  .  . 

"The  State,  of  course,  takes  hold  of  the  individual  life  more 
broadly,  with  more  systematic  purpose.  The  individual's  health 
is  cared  for,  his  house  is  inspected,  his  children  are  educated,  he  is 
insured  against  the  worst  vicissitudes  of  life,  his  savings  are  in- 
vested, his  transportation  of  goods  or  persons  is  undertaken,  his 
need  to  communicate  with  others  by  telegraph  or  telephone  is  met 
—  all  by  the  paternal  State  or  city. 

"Twenty-five  years  ago  the  Prussian  government  was  spending 
only  about  $13,500  a  year  on  trade  schools ;  now  it  is  spending  above 
three  million  dollars  on  more  than  1300  schools.  .  .  . 

"The  Prussian  State  had  also  long  been  an  extensive  owner  of  coal, 
potash,  salt,  and  iron  mines.  In  1907  a  law  was  passed  giving  the 
State  prior  mining  rights  to  all  undiscovered  coal  deposits.  In 
general,  however,  it  must  cede  those  rights  to  private  parties  on 
payment  of  a  royalty;  but  the  law  makes  an  exception  of  250 
'maximum  fields,'  equal  to  about  205  square  miles,  in  which  the 
State  itself  will  exercise  its  mining  rights.  It  has  recently  reserved 
this  amount  of  lands  adjacent  to  the  coal  fields  on  the  lower  Rhine 
and  in  Silesia.  The  State  has  already  about  80  square  miles  of 
coal  lands  in  its  hands,  from  which  it  is  taking  out  about  10,000,000 
tons  of  coal  a  year.  Its  success  as  a  mine  owner,  however,  appears 
to  be  less  marked  than  as  a  railway  proprietor;  experienced  busi- 
ness men  even  assert  that  the  State's  coal  and  iron  mines  would  be 
operated  at  a  loss  if  proper  allowances  were  made  for  depreciation 
and  amortization  of  capital,  as  must  be  done  in  the  case  of  private 
companies.  The  State  also  derives  comparatively  small  revenues 
from  its  forest  and  farming  lands  of  some  830,000  acres,  which  were 
formerly  the  property  of  the  Crown.  .  .  . 

"The  most  important  State  tax  is  that  on  incomes,  which  is  in 
all  cases  graduated  down  to  a  very  low  rate  on  the  smallest  income ; 
in  Prussia  there  is  no  tax  on  incomes  less  than  $214.  The  cities  also 


96  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

collect  the  bulk  of  their  revenues  from  incomes,  using  the  same 
classification  and  sliding  scale  as  the  State. 

"A  highly  interesting  innovation  in  taxation  is  the  'unearned 
increment'  tax  on  land  values,  first  adopted  by  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main  in  1904,  and  already  applied  by  over  300  German  cities  and 
towns.  .  .  . 

"The  bill  before  the  Reichstag  [since  become  a  law  —  W.  E.  W.] 
extends  sick  insurance  to  farm  laborers  and  household  servants, 
a  change  which  will  raise  the  burden  of  this  system  for  employers 
from  $24,000,000  to  $36,000,000.  The  bill  also  provides  for  pen- 
sioning the  widows  and  orphans  of  insured  laborers  at  an  estimated 
additional  expense  of  about  $17,000,000.  .  .  . 

"A  better  result  of  the  insurance  systems  than  the  modest 
pensions  and  the  indemnities  that  they  pay  is  to  be  found  in  their 
excellent  work  for  protecting  health  and  prolonging  life.  Many 
offices  have  their  own  hospitals  for  the  sick,  and  homes  for  the  con- 
valescent. .  .  . 

"All  these  protective  measures  have  already  told  effectively 
upon  the  death  rate  for  tuberculous  diseases.  In  the  three  years 
ending  with  1908,  deaths  from  pulmonary  tuberculosis  dropped 
from  226.6  to  192.12  per  100,000. 

"The  accident  system  has  also  had  a  powerful  effect  in  stimulat- 
ing among  the  physicians  and  surgeons  the  study  of  special  ways 
and  means  for  treating  accident  injuries,  with  reference  to  preserv- 
ing intact  the  strength  and  efficiency  of  the  patient.  .  .  . 

"Bismarck  once,  in  a  speech  in  the  Reichstag,  explicitly  rec- 
ognized the  laborer's  right  to  work.  Some  twenty  German  cities 
have  given  practical  effect  to  his  words  by  organizing  insurance 
against  nonemployment ;  and  the  governments  of  Bavaria  and 
Baden  have  taken  steps  to  encourage  this  movement.  Under  the 
systems  adopted,  the  laborer  pays  the  larger  part  of  the  insurance 
money,  and  the  city  the  rest ;  in  a  few  cases  money  has  been  given 
by  private  persons  to  assist  the  insurance."  (5)  [N.B.  The  word 
"Socialistic"  is  used  by  Mr.  Dreher  in  the  sense  of  "State  Social- 
ism," as  opposed  to  what  he  calls  "radical  Socialism."] 


CHAPTER  VII 
"EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY" 

MANY  reformers  admit  that  no  reforms  can  bring  us 
towards  democracy  as  long  as  class  rule  continues.  Henry 
George,  for  example,  recognizes  that  his  great  land  reform,  the 
government  appropriation  of  rent  for  public  purposes,  is  use- 
less when  the  government  itself  is  monopolized,  "when  po- 
litical power  passes  into  the  hands  of  a  class,  and  the  rest 
of  the  community  become  merely  tenants."  (1)  In  precisely 
the  same  way  every  great  "State  Socialist"  reform  must  fail 
to  bring  us  a  single  step  towards  real  democracy,  as  long  as 
classes  persist. 

That  strongly  marked  social  classes  do  exist  even  in  the 
United  States  is  now  admitted  by  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott, 
Andrew  Carnegie,  and  by  innumerable  other,  by  no  means 
Socialistic,  observers. 

"The  average  wage  earner,"  says  John  Mitchell,  "has 
made  up  his  mind  that  he  must  remain  a  wage  earner.  He 
has  given  up  the  hope  of  a  kingdom  to  come  where  he  will 
himself  be  a  capitalist."  (2)  This  feeling  is  almost  univer- 
sally shared  by  manual  wage  earners,  and  very  widely  also 
by  salaried  brain  workers.  Large  prizes  still  exist,  and  their 
influence  is  still  considerable  over  the  minds  of  young  men. 
But,  as  was  pointed  out  recently  in  an  editorial  of  the  Satur- 
day Evening  Post,  they  are  "just  out  of  reach,"  and  the  in- 
stances in  which  they  actually  materialize  are  "so  relatively 
few  as  to  be  negligible."  Even  if  these  prizes  were  a  hundred 
fold  more  numerous  than  they  are,  the  children  of  the  wage 
earners  would  still  not  have  a  tithe  of  the  opportunity  of  the 
children  of  the  well-to-do. 

To-day  in  the  country  opportunities  are  no  better  than  in 
the  towns.  The  universal  outcry  for  more  farm  labor  can 
only  mean  that  such  laborers  are  becoming  relatively  fewer 
because  they  are  giving  up  the  hope  that  formerly  kept  them 
in  the  country,  namely,  that  of  becoming  farm  owners. 
Already  Mr.  George  K.  Holmes  of  the  United  States  Bureau 
of  Statistics  estimates  that  in  the  chief  agricultural  section 
H  97 


98  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

of  the  country,  the  North  Central  States,  a  man  must  be  rich 
before  he  can  become  a  farmer,  and  so  rapidly  is  this  condi- 
tion spreading  to  other  sections  that  Mr.  Holmes  feels  that 
the  only  hope  of  obtaining  sufficient  farm  labor  is  to  persuade 
the  children  of  the  farmers  to  remain  on  the  farms. 

"Fifty  years  ago,"  said  McClure's  Magazine  in  a  recent 
announcement,  which  sums  up  some  of  the  chief  elements 
of  the  present  situation,  "we  were  a  nation  of  independent 
farmers  and  small  merchants.  To-day  we  are  a  nation  of 
corporation  employees."  There  can  be  no  question  that  we 
are  seeing  the  formation  in  this  country  of  very  definitely 
marked  economic  and  social  classes  such  as  have  long  pre- 
vailed in  the  older  countries  of  Europe.  And  this  class  divi- 
sion explains  why  the  political  democracies  of  such  countries 
as  France,  Switzerland,  the  United  States,  and  the  British 
Colonies  show  no  tendency  to  become  real  democracies.  Not 
only  do  classes  defend  every  advantage  and  privilege  that 
economic  evolution  brings  them,  but,  what  is  more  alarming, 
they  utilize  these  advantages  chiefly  to  give  their  children 
greater  privileges  still.  Unequal  opportunities  visibly  and 
inevitably  breed  more  unequal  opportunities. 

The  definite  establishment  of  industrial  capitalism,  a 
century  or  more  ago,  and  later  the  settlement  of  new  coun- 
tries, brought  about  a  revolutionary  advance  towards  equality 
of  opportunity.  But  the  further  development  of  capitalism 
has  been  marked  by  steady  retrogression.  Yet  nearly  all 
capitalist  statesmen,  some  of  them  honestly,  insist  that 
equality  of  opportunity  is  their  goal,  and  that  we  are  making 
or  that  we  are  about  to  make  great  strides  in  that  direction. 
Not  only  is  the  establishment  of  equality  of  opportunity 
accepted  as  the  aim  that  must  underlie  all  our  institutions, 
even  by  conservatives  like  President  Taft,  but  it  is  agreed  that 
it  is  a  perfectly  definite  principle.  Nobody  claims  that  there 
is  any  vagueness  about  it,  as  there  is  said  to  be  about  the 
demand  for  political,  economic,  or  social  equality. 

It  may  be  that  the  economic  positions  in  society  occupied 
by  men  and  women  who  have  now  reached  maturity  are 
already  to  some  slight  degree  distributed  according  to  relative 
fitness;  and,  even  though  this  fitness  is  due,  not  to  native 
superiority,  but  to  unfair  advantages  and  unequal  opportunity, 
it  may  be  that  a  general  change  for  the  better  is  here  impossible 
until  a  new  generation  has  appeared.  But  there  is  no  reason, 
except  the  opposition  of  parents  who  want  privileges  for 


"EQUALITY   OF  OPPORTUNITY"  99 

their  children,  why  every  child  in  every  civilized  country 
to-day  should  not  be  guaranteed  by  the  community  an  equal 
opportunity  in  public  education  and  an  equal  chance  for 
promotion  in  the  public  or  semi-public  service,  which  soon 
promises  to  employ  a  large  part  if  not  the  majority  of  the 
community.  No  Socialist  can  see  any  reason  for  continuing 
a  single  day  the  process  of  fastening  the  burdens  of  the  future 
society  beforehand  on  the  children  of  the  present  generation  of 
wage  earners,  children  as  yet  of  entirely  unknown  and  unde- 
veloped powers  and  not  yet  irremediably  shaped  to  serve  in 
the  subordinate  rdles  filled  by  their  parents. 

But  the  reformers  other  than  the  Socialists  are  not  even 
working  in  this  direction,  and  their  claims  that  they  are, 
can  easily  be  disproved.  Mr.  John  A.  Hobson,  for  example, 
believes  that  the  present  British  government  is  seeking  to 
realize  "equality  of  opportunity,"  which  he  defines  as  the 
effort  "to  give  equal  opportunities  to  all  parts  of  the  country 
and  all  classes  of  the  people,  and  so  to  develop  in  the  fullest 
and  the  farthest-sighted  way  the  national  resources."  (3) 
But  even  the  more  or  less  democratic  collectivism  Mr. 
Hobson  and  other  British  Radicals  advocate,  if  it  stops  short 
of  a  certain  point,  and  its  benefits  go  chiefly  to  the  middle 
classes,  may  merely  increase  middle-class  competition  for 
better-paid  positions,  and  so  obviously  decrease  the  relative 
opportunities  of  the  masses,  and  make  them  less  equal  than 
they  are  to-day. 

Edward  Bernstein,  the  Socialist,  says :  "The  number  of  the 
possessing  classes  is  to-day  not  smaller,  but  larger.  The  enor- 
mous increase  of  social  wealth  is  not  accompanied  by  a 
decreasing  number  of  large  capitalists,  but  by  an  increasing 
number  of  capitalists  of  all  degrees."  Whether  this  is  true 
or  not,  whether  the  well-to-do  middle  classes  are  gradually 
increasing  in  each  generation,  say,  to  5,  10,  or  15  per  cent 
of  the  population,  cannot  be  a  matter  of  more  than  secondary 
importance  to  the  overwhelming  majority,  the  "non-possess- 
ing classes,"  that  remain  outside.  Nobody  denies  that  social 
evolution  is  going  on  even  to-day.  But  the  masses  will 
probably  not  be  willing  to  wait  the  necessary  generations 
and  centuries  before  present  tendencies,  should  they  chance 
to  continue  long  enough  (which  is  doubtful  in  view  of  the 
rapid  formation  of  social  castes),  would  bring  the  masses 
any  considerable  share  of  existing  prosperity. 

To  secure  anything  approaching  equality  of  opportunity, 


100  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

the  first  and  most  necessary  measure  is  to  give  equal  educa- 
tional facilities  to  all  classes  of  the  population.  Yet  the 
most  radical  of  the  non-Socialist  educational  reformers  do 
not  dare  to  hope  at  present  even  for  a  step  in  this  direction. 
No  man  has  more  convincingly  described  what  the  first  step 
towards  a  genuinely  democratic  education  must  be  than 
Ex-President  Charles  W.  Eliot  of  Harvard,  perhaps  our  most 
influential  representative  of  political  as  opposed  to  social 
democracy. 

"Is  it  not  plain,"  asks  President  Eliot,  "that  if  the  Ameri- 
can people  were  all  well-to-do  they  would  multiply  by  four 
or  five  times  the  present  average  school  expenditure  per  child 
and  per  year?  That  is,  they  would  make  the  average 
expenditure  per  pupil  for  the  whole  school  year  in  the  United 
States  from  $60  to  $100  for  salaries  and  maintenance,  instead 
of  $17.36  as  now.  Is  it  not  obvious  that  instead  of  providing 
in  the  public  schools  a  teacher  for  forty  or  fifty  pupils,  they 
would  provide  a  teacher  for  every  ten  or  fifteen  pupils  ?  "  (4) 

The  reform  proposed  by  Dr.  Eliot,  if  applied  to  all  the 
twenty  million  children  of  school  age  in  the  United  States, 
would  mean  the  expenditure  of  two  billion  instead  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars  per  year  on  public  education. 
Ex-President  Eliot  fully  realizes  the  radical  and  democratic 
character  of  this  proposed  revolution  in  the  public  schools, 
and  is  correspondingly  careful  to  support  his  demands  at 
every  point  with  facts.  He  shows,  for  instance,  that  while 
private  schools  expend  for  the  tuition  and  general  care  of 
each  pupil  from  two  hundred  to  six  hundred  dollars  a  year, 
and  not  infrequently  provide  a  teacher  for  every  eight  or 
ten  pupils,  the  public  school  which  has  a  teacher  for  every 
forty  pupils  is  unusually  fortunate. 

Dr.  Eliot  says  that  while  there  has  been  great  improve- 
ment in  the  first  eight  grades  since  1870,  progress  is  infinitely 
slower  than  it  should  be,  and  that  the  majority  of  children 
do  not  yet  get  beyond  the  eighth  grade  (the  statistics  for 
this  country  show  that  only  one  out  of  nineteen  takes  a 
secondary  course).  "Philanthropists,  social  philosophers,  and 
friends  of  free  institutions,"  he  asks,  "is  that  the  fit  educa- 
tional outcome  of  a  century  of  democracy  in  an  undeveloped 
country  of  immense  natural  resources  ?  Leaders  and  guides 
of  the  people,  is  that  what  you  think  just  and  safe  ?  People 
of  the  United  States,  is  that  what  you  desire  and  intend?" 

In  order  not  only  to  bring  existing  public  schools  up  to  the 


"EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY"  101 

right  standard,  but  to  create  new  kinds  of  schools  that  are 
badly  needed,  the  plan  suggested  by  Dr.  Eliot  would  take 
another  billion  or  two.  He  advocates  kindergartens  and 
further  development  of  the  new  subjects  that  have  recently 
been  added  to  the  grammar  school  course;  he  opposes  the 
specialization  of  the  studies  of  children  for  their  life  work 
before  the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  year,  favors  complete 
development  of  the  high  school  as  well  as  the  manual  train- 
ing, mechanics,  art,  the  evening  and  the  vacation  schools, 
greater  attention  to  physical  education  and  development, 
and,  finally,  the  greatest  possible  extension  and  development 
of  our  institutions  of  higher  education.  He  also  advocates 
newer  reforms,  such  as  the  employment  of  skilled  physicians 
in  connection  with  the  schools,  the  opening  of  public  spaces, 
country  parks,  beaches,  city  squares,  gardens,  or  parkways 
for  the  instruction  of  school  children.  He  specifies  in  detail 
the  improvements  that  are  needed  in  school  buildings,  shows 
what  is  urgently  demanded  and  is  immediately  practicable 
in  the  way  of  increasing  the  number  of  teachers,  paying  them 
better  and  giving  them  pensions,  indicates  the  needed  im- 
provements in  the  administration  of  the  school  systems, 
urges  the  development  of  departmental  instruction  through 
several  grades,  and  the  addition  of  manual  training  to  all  the 
public  schools  along  with  a  better  instruction  in  music  and 
drawing. 

There  are  still  other  improvements  in  education  which  have 
already  been  tested  and  found  to  produce  the  most  valuable 
results.  Perhaps  the  most  important  ones  besides  those 
demanded  by  Dr.  Eliot  are  the  providing  of  free  or  cheap 
lunches  for  undernourished  children,  and  the  system, 
already  widespread  in  England  and  the  other  countries,  of 
furnishing  scholarships  to  carry  the  brighter  children  of  the 
impecunious  classes  through  the  college,  high  school,  and  tech- 
nical courses.  Even  this  policy  of  scholarships  would  lead  us 
to  full  democracy  in  education  only  if  by  its  means  the  child 
of  the  poorest  individual  had  exactly  the  same  opportunities 
as  those  of  the  richest.  It  is  not  enough  that  a  few  children 
only  should  be  so  advanced;  but  that  of  impecunious  children, 
who  constitute  90  per  cent  of  the  population,  a  sufficient  number 
should  be  advanced  to  fill  90  per  cent  of  those  positions,  in  indus- 
try, government,  and  society,  which  require  a  higher  education. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  actual  equality  in  the  "battle 
of  life  "  was  the  expectation  and  intention  of  those  who  settled 


102  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

and  built  up  the  western  part  of  the  United  States,  as  it  has 
been  that  of  all  the  democracies  of  new  countries.  But  this 
reform  alone  would  certainly  require  not  one  but  several 
billion  dollars  a  year ;  as  much  as  all  the  other  improvements 
mentioned  by  Dr.  Eliot  put  together.  We  may  estimate, 
then,  that  the  application  of  the  principle  of  democracy  or 
equality  of  opportunity  to  education  in  accordance  with 
the  present  national  income,  would  require  the  immediate 
expenditure  of  three  or  four  billion  dollars  on  the  nation's 
children  of  school  age,  or  ten  times  the  sum  we  now  expend, 
and  a  corresponding  increase  as  the  wealth  of  the  nation 
develops.  This  would  be  a  considerable  proportion  of  the 
nation's  income,  but  not  too  much  to  spend  on  the  children, 
who  constitute  nearly  half  the  population  and  are  at  the  age 
where  the  money  spent  is  most  productive. 

Here  is  a  program  for  the  coming  generation  which  would 
be  indorsed  by  a  very  large  part  of  the  democrats  of  the  past. 
But  nothing  could  make  it  more  clear  that  political  democ- 
racy is  bankrupt  even  in  its  new  collective  form,  that  it 
has  no  notion  of  the  method  by  which  its  own  ideals  are  to 
be  obtained.  For  no  reformer  dreams  that  this  perfectly 
sensible  and  practicable  program  will  be  carried  out  until 
there  has  been  some  revolutionary  change  in  society.  "I 
know  that  some  people  will  say  that  it  is  impossible  to  in- 
crease public  expenditure  in  the  total,  and  therefore  impos- 
sible to  increase  it  for  the  schools,"  says  Dr.  Eliot.  "I  deny 
both  allegations.  Public  expenditure  has  been  greatly 
increased  within  the  last  thirty  years,  and  so  has  school 
expenditure  "  (written  in  1902).  But  Dr.  Eliot  doubtless 
realizes  that  what  he  advocates  for  the  present  moment,  the 
expenditure  of  five  times  as  much  as  we  now  invest  in  public 
schools,  at  the  present  rate  of  progress,  might  not  be  accom- 
plished in  a  century,  and  that  by  that  time  society  might  well 
have  attained  a  degree  of  development  which  would  demand 
five  or  ten  times  as  much  again.  Dr.  Eliot  is  well  aware 
of  the  opposition  that  will  be  made  to  his  reform,  but  he  has 
not  given  the  slightest  indication  how  it  is  to  be  overcome. 
The  well-to-do  usually  feel  obligated  to  pay  for  the  private 
education  of  their  own  children,  and  even  where  public 
institutions  are  at  their  disposal  they  are  forced  to  support 
these  children  through  all  the  years  of  study.  This  is  expen- 
sive, but  this  very  expensiveness  gives  the  children  of  the 
well-to-do  a  practical  monopoly  of  the  opportunities  which 


"EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY"  103 

this  education  brings.  How  are  they  to  be  brought  to  favor, 
and,  since  they  are  the  chief  taxpayers,  to  pay  for  the  exten- 
sion of  these  same  opportunities  to  ten  times  the  number 
of  children  who  now  have  them  ? 

In  the  meanwhile  Dr.  Eliot  himself  seems  to  have  become 
discouraged  and  to  have  abandoned  his  own  ideal,  for  only 
seven  years  after  writing  the  above  he  came  to  advocate  the 
division  of  the  whole  national  school  system  into  three  classes : 
that  for  the  upper  class,  that  for  the  middle  class,  and  that 
for  the  masses  of  the  people  —  and  he  even  insisted  that  this 
division  is  democratic  if  the  elevation  of  the  pupil  from  one 
class  to  the  other  is  made  "easy."  (5)  Now  democracy  does 
not  require  that  the  advance  of  the  child  of  the  poor  be  made 
what  is  termed  easy,  but  that  he  be  given  an  equal  opportunity 
with  the  child  of  the  rich  as  far  as  all  useful  and  necessary  edu- 
cation is  concerned.  Democracy  does  not  tolerate  that  in 
education  the  children  of  the  poor  should  be  started  in  at  the 
bottom,  while  the  children  of  the  rich  are  started  at  the  top. 

Those  few  who  do  rise  under  such  conditions  only 
strengthen  the  position  of  the  upper  classes  as  against  that 
of  the  lower.  Tolstoi  was  right  when  he  said  that  when  an 
individual  rises  in  this  way  he  simply  brings  another  recruit 
to  the  rulers  from  the  ruled,  and  that  the  fact  that  this  pas- 
sage from  one  class  to  another  does  occasionally  take  place, 
and  is  not  absolutely  forbidden  by  law  and  custom  as  in 
India,  does  not  mean  that  we  have  no  castes.  (6)  Even  in 
ancient  Egypt,  it  was  quite  usual,  as  in  the  case  of  Joseph, 
to  elevate  slaves  to  the  highest  positions.  This  singling  out 
and  promotion  of  the  very  ablest  among  the  lower  classes 
may  indeed  be  called  the  basis  of  every  lasting  caste  system. 
All  those  societies  that  depended  on  a  purely  hereditary 
system  have  either  degenerated  or  were  quickly  destroyed. 
If  then  a  ruling  class  promotes  from  below  a  number  sufficient 
only  to  provide  for  its  own  need  of  new  abilities  and  new 
blood,  its  power  to  oppress,  to  protect  its  privileges,  and  to 
keep  progress  at  the  pace  and  in  the  direction  that  suits 
it  will  only  be  augmented  —  and  universal  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity will  be  farther  off  than  before.  Doubtless  the  num- 
bers "State  Socialism "  will  take  up  from  the  masses  and  equip 
for  higher  positions  will  constantly  increase.  But  neither 
will  the  opportunities  of  these  few  have  been  in  any  way  equal 
to  those  of  the  higher  classes,  nor  will  even  such  opportunities 
be  extended  to  any  but  an  insignificant  minority. 


104  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Nor  does  President  Eliot's  advocacy  of  class  schools  stand 
as  an  isolated  phenomenon.  Already  in  America  the  devel- 
opment of  free  secondary  schools  has  been  checked  by  the 
far  more  rapid  growth  of  private  institutions.  The  very 
classes  of  taxpayers  who  control  city  and  other  local  govern- 
ments and  school  boards  are  educating  their  own  children 
privately,  and  thus  have  a  double  motive  for  resisting  the 
further  advance  of  school  expenditure.  As  if  the  expense 
of  upkeep  during  the  period  of  education  were  not  enough  of 
a  handicap,  those  few  children  of  the  wage  earners  who  are 
brave  enough  to  attempt  to  compete  with  the  children  of 
the  middle  classes  are  now  subjected  to  the  necessity  of 
attending  inferior  schools  or  of  traveling  impracticable 
distances.  The  building  of  new  high  schools,  for  example, 
was  most  rapid  in  the  Middle  West  in  the  decades  1880-1899, 
and  in  the  Eastern  States  in  the  decade  1890-1900.  But 
within  a  few  years  after  1900  the  rate  of  increase  had  fallen 
in  the  Middle  West  to  about  one  half,  and  in  the  East  to 
less  than  one  third,  of  what  it  formerly  had  been.  (7)  It 
might  be  thought  that,  the  country  being  now  well  served 
with  secondary  schools,  the  rate  of  growth  must  diminish. 
This  may  be  true  of  a  part  of  the  rural  districts,  but  an  exam- 
ination of  the  situation  or  school  reports  of  our  large  cities 
will  show  how  far  it  is  from  being  true  there. 

In  Great  Britain  the  public  secondary  schools  for  the  most 
part  and  some  of  the  primary  schools,  though  supported 
wholly  or  largely  by  public  funds,  charge  a  tuition  fee.  The 
fact  that  a  very  small  per  cent  of  the  children  of  the  poor 
are  given  scholarships  which  relieve  them  of  this  fee  only 
serves  to  strengthen  the  upper  and  middle  classes,  without 
in  any  appreciable  degree  depriving  them  of  their  privileged 
position.  In  London,  for  example,  fees  of  from  $20  to  $40 
are  charged  in  the  secondary  schools,  and  their  superinten- 
dents report  that  they  are  attended  chiefly  by  the  children 
of  the  "lower  middle  classes,"  salaried  employees,  clerks, 
and  shopkeepers,  with  comparatively  few  of  the  children  of 
the  professional  classes  on  the  one  hand  or  of  the  best-paid 
workingmen  on  the  other.  An  organized  campaign  is  now 
on  foot  in  New  York  City  also,  among  the  taxpayers,  to 
introduce  a  certain  proportion  of  primary  pay  schools,  for 
the  frank  purpose  of  separating  the  lower  middle  from  the 
working  classes,  and  to  charge  fees  in  all  secondary  schools 
so  as  to  bring  a  new  source  of  income  and  decrease  the  number 


"EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY"  105 

of  students  and  the  amounts  spent  on  the  schools.  This  in 
spite  of  the  annual  plea  of  Superintendent  Maxwell  for  more 
secondary  schools,  more  primary  teachers,  and  primary  school 
buildings.  Instead  of  going  in  the  direction  indicated  by 
Dr.  Eliot  and  preparing  to  spend  four  or  five  times  the  pres- 
ent amount,  there  is  a  strong  movement  to  spend  less.  And 
nothing  so  hastens  this  reactionary  movement  as  the  tend- 
ency, whether  automatic  or  consciously  stimulated,  towards 
class  (or  caste)  education  —  such  as  Dr.  Eliot  and  so  many 
other  reformers  now  directly  or  indirectly  encourage  — 
usually  under  the  cloak  of  industrial  education. 

The  most  anti-social  aspects  of  capitalism,  whether  in  its 
individualist  or  its  collectivist  form,  are  the  grossly  unequal 
educational  and  occupational  privileges  it  gives  the  young. 
An  examination  of  the  better  positions  now  being  obtained 
by  men  and  women  not  yet  past  middle  age  will  show,  let 
us  say,  that  ten  times  as  many  prizes  are  going  to  persons 
who  were  given  good  educational  opportunities  as  to  those 
who  were  not.  But  as  the  children  of  those  who  can  afford 
such  opportunities  are  not  a  tenth  as  numerous  as  the  children 
of  the  rest  of  the  people,  this  would  mean  that  the  latter  have 
only  a  hundredth  part  of  the  former's  opportunities.  Under 
this  supposition,  one  tenth  of  the  population  secures  ten 
elevenths  of  the  positions  for  which  a  higher  education  is 
required.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  existing  inequality  of 
opportunity  is  undoubtedly  very  much  greater  than  this, 
and  the  unequal  distribution  of  opportunities  is  visibly  and 
rapidly  becoming  still  less  equal.  In  1910,  of  nineteen  mil- 
lion pupils  of  public  and  private  schools  in  this  country,  only 
one  million  were  securing  a  secondary,  and  less  than  a  third 
of  a  million  a  higher,  education.  Here  are  some  figures 
gathered  by  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation  in  its  recent  survey 
of  public  school  management.  The  report  covers  386  of 
the  larger  cities  of  the  Union.  Out  of  every  100  children 
who  enter  the  schools,  45  drop  out  before  the  sixth  year; 
that  is,  before  they  have  learned  to  read  English.  Only  25  of 
the  remainder  graduate  and  enter  the  high  schools,  and  of  these 
but  6  complete  the  course. 

The  expense  of  a  superior  education,  including  upkeep 
during  the  increasing  number  of  years  required,  is  rising  many 
times  more  rapidly  than  the  income  of  the  average  man.  At 
the  same  time,  both  the  wealth  and  the  numbers  of  the  well- 
to-do  are  increasing  in  greater  proportion  than  those  of  the 


106  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

rest  of  the  people.  While  the  better  places  get  farther  and 
farther  out  of  the  reach  of  the  children  of  the  masses,  owing 
to  the  overcrowding  of  the  professions  by  children  of  the 
well-to-do,  the  competition  becomes  ever  keener,  and  the 
poor  boy  or  girl  who  must  struggle  not  only  against  this 
excessive  competition,  but  also  against  his  economic  handi- 
cap, confronts  an  almost  superhuman  task. 

It  is  obvious  that  this  tendency  cannot  be  reversed,  no 
matter  how  rapidly  the  people's  income  is  increased,  unless 
it  rises  more  rapidly  than  that  of  the  well-to-do.  And  this, 
Socialists  believe,  has  never  happened  except  when  the  masses 
obtained  political  power  and  made  full  use  of  it  against  the 
class  in  control  of  industry  and  government. 

No  amount  of  material  progress  and  no  reorganization  of 
industry  or  government  which  does  not  promise  to  equalize 
opportunity,  —  however  rapid  or  even  sensational  it  may  be, 
— is  of  the  first  moment  to  the  Socialists  of  the  movement. 
Wages  might  increase  5  or  10  per  cent  every  year,  as  profits 
increase  to-day ;  hours  might  be  shortened  and  the  intensity 
of  labor  lessened ;  and  yet  the  gulf  between  the  classes  might 
be  growing  wider  than  ever.  If  society  is  to  progress  toward 
industrial  democracy,  it  is  necessary  that  the  people  should 
fix  their  attention,  not  merely  on  the  improvement  of  their 
own  condition,  but  on  their  progress  when  compared  with 
that  of  the  capitalist  classes,  i.e.  when  measured  by  present- 
day  civilization  and  the  possibilities  it  affords. 

No  matter  how  fast  wages  increase,  if  profits  increase  faster, 
we  are  journeying  not  towards  social  democracy,  but  towards  a 
caste  society.  Thus  to  insist  that  we  must  keep  our  eyes  on 
the  prosperity  of  others  in  order  to  measure  our  own  seems 
like  preaching  envy  or  class  hatred.  But  in  social  questions 
the  laws  of  individual  morality  are  often  reversed.  It  is 
the  social  duty  of  every  less  prosperous  class  of  citizens,  their 
duty  towards  the  whole  of  the  coming  generation  as  well  as 
to  their  own  children,  to  measure  their  own  progress  solely 
by  a  standard  raised  in  accordance  with  the  point  in  evolu- 
tion that  society  has  attained.  What  would  have  been  com- 
parative luxury  a  hundred  years  ago  it  is  our  duty  to  view 
as  nothing  less  than  a  degrading  and  life-destroying  poverty 
to-day. 

Opportunity  is  not  becoming  equal.  The  tendency  is 
in  the  opposite  direction,  and  not  all  the  reforms  of  "State 
Socialism"  promise  to  counteract  it.  The  citizen  owes  it  to 


"EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY"  107 

society  to  ask  of  every  proposed  program  of  change,  "Will 
it,  within  a  reasonable  period,  bring  equality  of  opportunity  ?  " 
To  rest  satisfied  with  less  —  a  so-called  tendency  of  certain 
reforms  in  the  right  direction  may  be  wholly  illusory  —  is 
not  only  to  abandon  one's  rights  and  those  of  one's  children, 
but  to  rob  society  of  the  only  possible  assurance  of  the  maxi- 
mum of  progress. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"  as  I  have  described  it  will  doubtless 
continue  to  be  the  guiding  policy  of  governments  during  a 
large  part,  if  not  all,  of  the  present  generation.  Capitalism, 
in  this  new  collectivist  form,  must  bring  about  extremely 
deep-seated  and  far-reaching  changes  in  society.  And  every 
step  that  it  takes  in  the  nationalization  of  industry  and  the 
appropriation  of  land  rent  would  also  be  a  step  in  Socialism, 
provided  the  rents  and  profits  so  turned  into  the  coffers  of 
the  State  were  not  used  entirely  for  the  benefit  either  of 
industry  or  of  the  community  as  a  whole,  as  it  is  now 
constituted,  but  were  reserved  in  part  for  the  special  benefit 
of  the  less  wealthy,  less  educated,  and  less  advantageously  placed, 
so  as  gradually  to  equalize  income,  influence,  and  opportunity. 

But  what,  as  matter  of  fact,  are  the  ways  in  which  the  new 
revenues  are  likely  to  be  used  before  the  Socialists  are  either 
actually  or  practically  in  control  of  the  government  ?  First 
of  all,  they  will  be  used  for  the  further  development  of  indus- 
try itself  and  of  schemes  which  aid  industry,  as  by  affording 
cheaper  credit,  cheaper  transportation,  cheaper  lumber, 
cheaper  coal,  etc.,  which  will  chiefly  benefit  the  manufac- 
turers, since  all  these  raw  materials  and  services  are  so  much 
more  largely  used  in  industry  than  in  private  consumption. 

Secondly,  the  new  sources  of  government  revenue  will  be 
used  to  relieve  certain  older  forms  of  taxation.  The  very  mod- 
erately graduated  income  and  inheritance  taxes  which  are  now 
common,  small  capitalists  have  tolerated  principally  on  the 
ground  that  the  State  is  in  absolute  need  of  them  for  essential 
expenses.  We  may  soon  expect  a  period  when  the  present 
rapid  expansion  of  this  form  of  taxation  as  well  as  other 
direct  taxes  on  industry,  building,  corporations,  etc.,  will 
be  checked  somewhat  by  the  new  revenues  obtained  from  the 
profits  of  government  enterprises  and  the  taxation  of  ground 
values.  Indirect  taxation  of  the  consuming  public  in  gen- 
eral, through  tariffs  and  internal  revenue  taxes,  will  also  be 

108 


THE  "FIRST  STEP"  TOWARDS   SOCIALISM       109 

materially  lightened.  As  soon  as  new  and  larger  sources 
of  income  are  created,  the  cry  of  the  consumers  for  relief 
will  be  louder  than  ever,  and  since  a  large  part  of  consumption 
is  that  of  the  capitalists  in  manufacture,  the  cry  will  be  heard. 
This  will  mean  lower  prices.  But  in  the  long  run  salaries  and 
wages  accommodate  themselves  to  prices,  so  that  this  reform, 
beneficial  as  it  may  be,  cannot  be  accepted  as  meaning, 
for  the  masses,  more  than  a  merely  temporary  relief.  A  third 
form  of  tax  reduction  would  be  the  special  exemption  of  the 
poorer  classes  from  even  the  smallest  direct  taxation.  But  as 
employers  and  wage  boards,  in  fixing  wages,  will  take  this 
reduction  into  account,  as  well  as  the  lower  prices  and  rents, 
such  exemptions  will  effect  no  great  or  lasting  change  in  the 
division  of  the  national  income  between  capitalists  and  re- 
ceivers of  salaries  and  wages. 

A  third  way  in  which  the  new  and  vastly  increased  incomes 
of  the  national  and  local  governments  can  be  expended  is 
the  communistic  way,  as  in  developing  commercial  and  tech- 
nical education,  in  protecting  the  public  health,  in  building 
model  tenements,  in  decreasing  the  cost  of  traveling  for 
health  or  business,  and  in  promoting  all  measures  that  are 
likely  to  increase  industrial  efficiency  and  profits  without  too 
great  cost. 

A  fourth  way  in  which  the  new  revenue  may  be  expended, 
before  the  Socialists  are  in  actual  or  practical  control,  would 
be  in  somewhat  increasing  the  wages  and  somewhat  shorten- 
ing the  hours  of  the  State  and  municipal  employees,  who  will 
soon  constitute  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  community. 
Here  again  it  is  impossible  to  expect  any  but  a  Socialist 
government  to  go  very  far.  As  I  have  shown,  it  is  to  be 
questioned  whether  any  capitalistic  administration,  however 
advanced,  would  increase  real  wages  (wages  measured  by  their 
purchasing  power),  except  in  so  far  as  the  higher  wages  will 
result  in  a  corresponding  or  greater  increase  in  efficiency,  and 
so  in  the  profits  made  from  labor.  And  the  same  law  applies 
to  most  other  governmental  (or  private)  expenditures  on 
behalf  of  labor,  whether  in  shortened  hours,  insurance, 
improved  conditions,  or  any  other  form. 

The  very  essence  of  capitalist  collectivism  is  that  the  share 
of  the  total  profits  which  goes  to  the  ruling  class  should  not 
be  decreased,  and  if  possible  should  be  augmented.  In  spite 
of  material  improvements  the  economic  gulf  between  the 
classes,  during  the  period  it  dominates,  will  either  remain  as 


110  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

it  is,  or  become  wider  and  deeper  than  before.  On  the  ground 
of  the  health  and  ultimate  working  efficiency  of  the  present 
and  future  generation,  hours  may  be  considerably  shortened, 
and  the  labor  of  women  and  children  considerably  curtailed. 
Insurance  against  death,  old  age,  sickness,  and  accident 
will  doubtless  be  taken  over  by  the  government.  Mothers 
who  are  unable  to  take  care  of  their  children  will  probably 
be  pensioned,  as  now  proposed  in  France,  and  many  children 
will  be  publicly  fed  in  school,  as  in  a  number  of  the  British 
and  Continental  places.  The  most  complete  code  of  labor 
legislation  is  practically  assured ;  for,  as  government  owner- 
ship extends,  the  State  will  become  to  some  extent  the  model 
employer. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  especially  in  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  but  also  in  other  countries,  the  method 
of  allaying  discontent  was  to  distract  public  attention  from 
politics  altogether  by  stimulating  the  chase  after  private 
wealth.  But  as  private  wealth  is  more  and  more  difficult 
to  attain,  this  policy  is  rapidly  replaced  by  the  very  opposite 
tactics,  to  keep  the  people  absorbed  in  the  political  chase 
after  the  material  benefits  of  economic  reform.  For  this 
purpose  every  effort  is  being  used  to  stimulate  political 
interest,  to  popularize  the  measures  of  the  new  State  capital- 
ism, to  foster  public  movements  in  their  behalf,  and  finally 
to  grant  the  reforms,  not  as  a  new  form  of  capitalism,  but  as 
"concessions  to  public  opinion."  At  present  it  is  only  the 
most  powerful  of  the  large  capitalists  and  the  most  radical 
of  the  small  that  have  fully  adapted  themselves  to  the  new 
policies.  But  this  will  cause  no  serious  delay,  for  among 
policies,  as  elsewhere,  the  fittest  are  surely  destined  to  survive. 

Ten  years  ago  it  would  have  been  held  as  highly  improbable 
that  we  would  enter  into  such  a  collectivist  period  in  half  a 
century.  Already  a  large  part  of  the  present  generation 
expect  to  see  it  in  their  lifetime.  And  the  constantly  acceler- 
ated developments  of  recent  years  justify  the  belief  of  many 
that  we  may  find  ourselves  far  advanced  in  "State  Socialism" 
before  another  decade  has  passed. 

The  question  that  must  now  be  answered  by  the  statesman 
as  opposed  to  the  mere  politician,  by  the  publicist  as  opposed 
to  the  mere  journalist,  is,  not  how  soon  the  program  of  "State 
Socialism"  will  be  put  into  effect,  but  what  is  going  to  be 
the  attitude  of  the  masses  towards  it.  A  movement  exists 
that  is  already  expressing  and  organizing  their  discontent 


THE   "FIRST  STEP"   TOWARDS  SOCIALISM       111 

with  capitalism  in  whatever  form.  It  promises  to  fill  this 
function  still  more  fully  and  vigorously  in  proportion  as  col- 
lectivist  capitalism  develops.  I  refer  to  the  international 
revolutionary  movement  that  finds  its  chief  expression  in  the 
federated  Socialist  parties.  The  majority  of  the  best-known 
spokesmen  of  this  movement  agree  that  social  reform  is 
advancing ;  yet  most  of  them  say,  with  Kautsky,  that  control 
of  the  capitalists  over  industry  and  government  is  advancing 
even  more  rapidly,  partly  by  means  of  these  very  reforms, 
so  that  the  Machtverhaeltnisse,  or  distribution  of  political 
and  economic  power  between  the  various  social  classes,  is 
even  becoming  less  favorable  to  the  masses  than  it  was  before. 
The  one  thing  they  feel  is  that  no  such  capitalist  society  will 
ever  be  willing  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  non-cap- 
italists to  such  a  degree  that  the  latter  will  get  an  increasing 
proportion  of  the  products  of  industry  or  of  the  benefits  of 
legislation,  or  an  increased  influence  over  government.  The 
capitalists  will  never  do  anything  to  disturb  radically  the 
existing  balance  of  power. 

While  Socialists  have  not  always  conceded  that  the  capital- 
ists will  themselves  undertake,  without  compulsion,  large 
measures  of  political  democracy  and  social  reform,  —  even 
of  the  capitalistic  variety,  —  nearly  all  of  the  most  influential 
are  now  coming  to  base  their  whole  policy  on  this  now  very 
evident  tendency,  and  some  have  done  so  for  many  years 
past.  For  instance,  it  has  been  clear  to  many  from  the  time 
of  Karl  Marx  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  capitalist  society 
itself  to  nationalize  or  municipalize  businesses  that  become 
monopolized,  without  any  reference  to  Socialism  or  the 
Socialists. 

"These  private  monopolies  have  become  unbearable," 
says  Kautsky,  "not  simply  for  the  wage  workers,  but  for  all 
classes  of  society  who  do  not  share  in  their  ownership," 
and  he  adds  that  it  is  only  the  weakness  of  the  bourgeois 
(the  smaller  capitalist)  as  opposed  to  capital  (the  large  cap- 
italist) that  hinders  him  from  taking  effective  action.  In- 
deed, one  of  the  chief  respects  in  which  history  has  pursued 
a  somewhat  different  course  from  that  expected  by  Marx 
has  been  in  the  failure  of  capitalist  society  to  attempt  imme- 
diately this  solution  of  the  trust  problem  through  govern- 
ment ownership.  Marx  expected  that  this  attempt  would 
necessarily  be  made  as  soon  as  the  monopolies  reached  an 
advanced  state,  and  that  the  resulting  economic  revolution 


112  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

would  develop  into  a  Socialist  revolution.  But  this  monopo- 
listic period  has  come,  the  trusts  are  rapidly  dominating  the 
whole  field  of  industry  and  government,  and  yet  it  seems  im- 
probable that  they  will  be  forced  to  any  final  compromise 
with  the  small  capitalist  investors  and  consumers  for  some 
years  to  come.  In  the  meanwhile,  no  doubt,  the  process  of 
nationalization  will  begin,  but  too  late  to  fulfill  Marx's 
expectation,  for  the  large  and  small  capitalists  will  have  time 
to  become  better  united,  and  their  combined  control  over 
government  will  have  had  time  to  grow  more  secure  than 
ever.  The  new  partnership  of  capitalism  and  the  State  will, 
no  doubt,  represent  the  small  capitalists  as  well  as  the  large, 
but  there  is  no  sign  that  the  working  people  will  be  able  to 
take  advantage  of  the  coming  transformation  for  any  non- 
capitalist  purpose.  Nor  did  Marx  expect  national  ownership 
to  increase  the  relative  strength  of  the  workers  unless  it 
was  accompanied  by  a  political  revolution. 

Another  vast  capitalist  reform  predicted  by  Socialists 
since  the  Communist  Manifesto  (1847)  is  nationalization  or 
municipalization  of  the  ground  rent  or  unearned  increment  of 
land.  At  first  Kautsky  and  others  were  inclined  to  expect 
that  nothing  would  be  done  in  this  direction  until  the  working 
classes  themselves  achieved  political  power,  but  it  has  always 
been  seen  from  the  days  of  Marx  that  the  industrial  capital- 
ists had  no  particular  reason  for  wishing  to  be  burdened  with 
a  parasitic  class  of  landlords  that  weighed  on  their  shoulders 
as  much  as  on  those  of  the  rest  of  the  people.  Not  only  do 
industrial  capitalists  pay  heavy  rents  to  landlords,  but  the 
rent  paid  by  the  wage  worker  also  has  to  be  paid  indirectly 
and  in  part  by  the  industrial  capitalist:  "The  quantity  of 
wealth  that  a  landlord  can  appropriate  from  the  capitalist 
class  becomes  larger  in  proportion  as  the  general  demand  for 
land  increases,  in  proportion  as  population  grows,  in  propor- 
tion as  the  capitalist  class  needs  land,  i.e.  in  proportion  as 
the  capitalist  system  of  production  expands.  In  proportion 
with  all  this,  rent  rises ;  that  is  to  say,  the  aggregate  amount 
of  wealth  increases  which  the  landlord  class  can  slice  off  — 
either  directly  or  indirectly  —  from  the  surplus  that  would 
otherwise  be  grabbed  by  the  capitalist  class  alone."  (1) 

The  industrial  capitalists,  then,  have  very  motive  to  put 
an  end  to  this  kind  of  parasitism,  and  to  use  the  funds  se- 
cured, through  confiscatory  taxation  of  the  unearned  incre- 
ment of  land,  to  lessen  their  own  taxation,  to  nationalize 


THE   "FIRST  STEP"  TOWARDS  SOCIALISM       113 

those  fundamental  industries  that  can  only  be  made  in  this 
way  to  subserve  the  interests  of  the  capitalist  class  as  a  whole 
(instead  of  some  part  of  it  merely),  and  to  undertake  through 
government  those  costly  enterprises  which  are  needed  by  all 
industry,  but  which  give  too  slow  returns  to  attract  the  cap- 
italist investor. 

This  enormous  reform,  in  land  taxation,  which  alone 
would  put  into  the  hands  of  governments  ultimately  almost 
a  third  of  the  capital  of  modern  nations,  was  considered 
by  Marx,  in  all  its  early  stages,  as  purely  capitalistic,  "a  So- 
dalistically-f ringed  attempt  to  save  the  rule  of  capitalism,  and  to 
establish  it  in  fact  on  a  still  larger  foundation  at  present."  (2) 
Indeed,  I  have  shown  in  a  previous  chapter  that  radical 
reformers  who  advocated  this  single-tax  idea,  along  with  the 
nationalization  and  municipalization  of  monopolies,  do  so 
with  the  conscious  purpose  of  reviving  capitalism  and  mak- 
ing it  more  permanent,  precisely  as  Marx  says.  The  great 
Socialist  wrote  the  above  phrase  in  1881  (in  a  recently 
published  letter  to  Sorge  of  New  York)  after  reading  Henry 
George's  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  which  had  just  appeared. 
He  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  James  Mill  and  other 
capitalistic  economists  had  long  before  recommended  that 
land  rent  should  be  paid  to  the  State  so  as  to  serve  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  taxes,  and  that  he,  himself,  had  advocated  it  in 
the  Manifesto  of  1847  —  among  transitional  measures. 

Marx  says  that  he  and  Engels  "inserted  this  appropriation 
of  ground  rent  by  the  State  among  many  other  demands," 
which,  as  also  stated  in  the  Manifesto,  "are  self-contradic- 
tory and  must  be  such  of  necessity."  He  explains  what  he 
means  by  this  in  the  same  letter.  In  the  very  year  of  the 
Manifesto  he  had  written  (in  his  book  against  Proudhon) 
that  this  measure  was  "a  frank  statement  of  the  hatred  felt 
by  the  industrial  capitalist  for  the  landowner,  who  seems  to 
him  to  be  a  useless,  unnecessary  member  in  the  organism  of 
Capitalist  society."  Marx  demanded  "the  abolition  of 
property  in  land,  and  the  application  of  all  land  rents  to 
public  purposes,"  not  because  this  is  in  any  sense  the  smallest 
installment  of  Socialism,  but  because  it  is  a  progressive  capital- 
istic measure.  While  it  strengthens  capitalism  by  removing 
"a  useless,  unnecessary  member,"  and  by  placing  it  "on  a 
still  larger  foundation  than  it  has  at  the  present,"  it  also 
matures  it  and  makes  it  ready  for  Socialism  —  ready,  that  is 
to  say,  as  soon  as  the  working  people  capture  the  government  and 


114  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

turn  the  capitalists  out,  but  not  a  day  sooner.  (3)  Until  that 
time  even  the  most  grandiose  reform  is  merely  "a  Socialist- 
ically-fringed  attempt  to  save  the  rule  of  capitalism." 

Other  "transitional  measures"  mentioned  by  Marx  and 
Engels  in  1847,  some  of  which  had  already  been  taken  up  as 
"  Socialistically-f ringed  attempts  to  save  the  rule  of  capital- 
ism" even  before  their  death  were :  — 

The  heavily  graduated  income  tax. 

The  abolition  of  inheritance. 

A  government  bank  with  an  exclusive  monopoly. 

A  partial  nationalization  of  factories. 

(No  doubt,  the  part  they  would  select  would  be  that 

operated  by  the  trusts.) 
Government  cultivation  of  waste  lands. 

Here  we  have  a  program  closely  resembling  that  of  "State 
capitalism."  It  omits  the  important  labor  legislation  for 
increasing  efficiency,  since  this  was  unprofitable  under  com- 
petitive and  extra-governmental  capitalism,  and  in  Marx's 
time  had  not  yet  appeared ;  e.g.  the  minimum  wage,  a  shorter 
working  day,  and  workingmen's  insurance.  As  Marx  and 
Engels  mention,  however,  the  substitution  of  industrial 
education  for  child  labor  (one  of  the  most  important  and  typi- 
cal of  these  reforms),  they  would  surely  have  included  other 
measures  of  the  same  order,  had  they  been  practicable  and 
under  discussion  at  the  time. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Marx  and  Engels,  in  this 
early  pronunciamento,  were  purposely  ambiguous  in  their 
language.  For  example,  they  demand  "the  extension  of 
factories  and  instruments  of  production  owned  by  the  state." 
This  is  plainly  a  conservatively  capitalistic  or  a  revolutionary 
Socialist  measure  entirely  according  to  the  degree  to  which, 
and  the  hands  by  which,  it  is  carried  out  —  and  the  same  is 
evidently  true  of  the  appropriation  of  land  rent  and  the 
abolition  of  inheritance.  This  is  what  Marx  means  when  he 
says  that  every  such  measure  is  "self-contradictory  and  must 
be  such  of  necessity."  Up  to  a  certain  point  they  put  capi- 
talism on  "a  larger  basis" ;  if  carried  beyond  that,  they  may, 
in  the  right  hands,  become  steps  in  Socialism. 

Marx  and  Engels  were  neither  able  nor  willing  to  lay  out  a 
program  which  would  distinguish  sharply  between  measures 
that  would  be  transitional  and  those  that  would  be  Socialist 
sixty  or  seventy  years  after  they  wrote,  but  merely  gave  con- 


THE   "FIRST   STEP"   TOWARDS  SOCIALISM       115 

crete  illustrations  of  their  policy;  they  stated  explicitly  that 
such  reforms  would  vary  from  country  to  country,  and  only 
claimed  for  those  they  mentioned  that  they  would  be  "pretty 
generally  applicable."  Yet,  understood  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  was  originally  promulgated  and  afterwards  ex- 
plained, this  early  Socialist  program  still  affords  the 
most  valuable  key  we  have  as  to  what  Socialism  is,  if  we 
view  it  on  the  side  of  its  practical  efforts  rather  than  on 
that  of  abstract  theories.  Marx  and  Engels  recognize  that 
the  measures  I  have  mentioned  must  be  acknowledged 
as  "insufficient  and  untenable,"  because,  though  they 
involve  "inroads  on  the  rights  of  property,"  they  do  not  go 
far  enough  to  destroy  capitalism  and  establish  a  Socialistic 
society.  But  they  reassure  their  Socialistic  critics  by  point- 
ing out  that  these  "  insufficient"  and  "transitory"  measures, 
"in  the  course  of  the  movement,  outstrip  themselves,  neces- 
sitate further  inroads  on  the  old  social  order,  and  are  indispen- 
sable as  a  means  of  entirely  revolutionizing  the  mode  of 
production."  (My  italics.) 

That  is,  "State  Socialism"  is  indispensable  as  a  basis 
for  Socialism,  indeed  necessitates  it,  provided  Socialists  look 
upon  "State  Socialist"  measures  chiefly  as  transitory 
means  "to  raise  the  proletariat  to  the  position  of  ruling  class  "  ; 
for  this  rise  of  the  proletariat  to  the  position  of  ruling  class 
is  necessarily  "the  first  step  in  the  revolution  of  the  working 
class." 

From  the  day  of  this  first  step  the  whole  direction  of  social 
evolution  would  be  altered.  For,  while  the  Socialists  expect  to 
utilize  every  reform  of  capitalist  collectivism,  and  can  only  build 
on  that  foundation,  their  later  policy  would  be  diametrically 
opposed  to  it.  A  Socialist  government  would  begin  immediately 
an  almost  complete  reversal  of  the  statesmanship  of  "State 
Socialism."  The  first  measure  it  would  undertake  would 
be  to  begin  at  once  to  increase  wages  faster  than  the  rate  of  in- 
crease of  the  total  wealth  of  the  community.  Secondly,  within  a  few 
years,  it  would  give  to  the  masses  of  the  population,  accord- 
ing to  their  abilities,  all  the  education  needed  to  fill  from  the 
ranks  of  the  non-capitalistic  classes  a  proportion  of  all  the 
most  desirable  and  important  positions  in  the  community, 
corresponding  to  their  numbers,  and  would  see  to  it  that  they 
got  these  positions. 

It  is  undoubtedly  the  opinion  of  the  most  representative  fig- 
ures of  the  international  Socialist  movement  that  there  is  not 


116  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

the  slightest  possibility  that  any  of  the  non-Socialist  reformers 
of  to-day  or  of  the  near  future  are  following  or  will  follow 
any  such  policy,  or  even  take  the  slightest  step  in  that  direc- 
tion; and  that  there  is  nothing  Socialists  can  do  to  force 
such  a  policy  on  the  capitalists  until  they  are  actually  or 
practically  in  power.  Society  may  continue  to  progress,  but 
it  is  surely  inconceivable  to  any  close  observer,  as  it  is  incon- 
ceivable to  the  Socialists,  that  the  privileged  classes  will 
ever  consent,  without  the  most  violent  struggle,  to  a  program 
which,  viewed  as  a  whole,  would  lead,  however  gradually  or 
indirectly,  to  a  more  equitable  distribution  of  wealth  and 
political  power. 


PART   II 
THE   POLITICS   OF   SOCIALISM 

CHAPTER  I 
"STATE  SOCIALISM"  WITHIN   THE   MOVEMENT 

THE  Socialist  movement  must  be  judged  by  its  acts,  by  the 
decisions  Socialists  have  reached  and  the  reasoning  they  have 
used  as  they  have  met  concrete  problems. 

The  Socialists  themselves  agree  that  first  importance  is  to 
be  attached,  not  to  the  theories  of  Socialist  writers,  but  to 
the  principles  that  have  actually  guided  Socialist  parties 
and  their  instructed  representatives  in  capitalist  legislatures. 
These  and  the  proceedings  of  international  and  national 
congresses  and  the  discussion  that  constantly  goes  on  within 
each  party,  and  not  theoretical  writings,  give  the  only  truthful 
and  reliable  impression  of  the  movement. 

In  1900  Wilhelm  Liebknecht,  who  up  to  the  time  of  his 
death  was  as  influential  as  Bebel  in  the  German  Party, 
pointed  out  that  those  party  members  who  disavowed  Social- 
ist principles  in  their  practical  application  were  far  more 
dangerous  to  the  movement  than  those  who  made  wholesale 
theoretical  assaults  on  the  Socialist  philosophy,  and  that 
political  alliances  with  capitalist  parties  were  far  worse  than 
the  repudiation  of  the  teachings  of  Karl  Marx.  In  his  well- 
known  pamphlet  No  Compromise  he  showed  that  this  fact 
had  been  recognized  by  the  German  Party  from  the 
beginning. 

I  have  shown  the  Socialists'  actual  position  through  their 
attitude  towards  progressive  capitalism.  An  equally  con- 
crete method  of  dealing  with  Socialist  actualities  is  to  por- 
tray the  various  tendencies  within  the  movement.  The 
Socialist  position  can  never  be  clearly  defined  except  by 
contrasting  it  with  those  policies  that  the  movement  has 
rejected  or  is  in  the  process  of  rejecting  to-day.  Indeed,  no 
Socialist  policy  can  be  viewed  as  at  all  settled  or  important 
unless  it  has  proved  itself  "fit,"  by  having  survived  struggles 

117 


118  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

either  with  its  rivals  outside  or  with  its  opponents  inside  the 
movement. 

If  we  turn  our  attention  to  what  is  going  on  within  the 
movement,  we  will  at  once  be  struck  by  a  world-wide  sit- 
uation. "State  Socialism"  is  not  only  becoming  the  policy 
of  the  leading  capitalistic  parties  in  many  countries,  but  — 
in  a  modified  form  —  it  has  also  become  the  chief  preoccu- 
pation of  a  large  group  among  the  Socialists.  "Reformist" 
Socialists  view  most  of  the  reforms  of  "State  Socialism"  as 
installments  of  Socialism,  enacted  by  the  capitalists  in  the 
hope  of  diverting  attention  from  the  rising  Socialist  move- 
ment. 

To  Marx,  on  the  contrary,  the  first  "step"  in  Socialism  was 
the  conquest  of  complete  political  power  by  the  Socialists. 
"The  proletariat,"  he  wrote  in  the  Communist  Manifesto 
"will  use  its  political  supremacy  to  wrest,  by  degrees,  all  capi- 
tal from  the  capitalists,  to  centralize  all  instruments  of  produc- 
tion in  the  hands  of  the  State,  i.e.  of  the  proletariat  organized 
as  the  ruling  class."  (My  italics.)  Here  is  the  antithesis 
both  of  "reformist"  Socialism  within  the  movement  and  of 
"State  Socialism"  without.  The  working  people  are  not 
expected  to  gain  more  and  more  political  power  step  by  step 
and  to  use  it  as  they  go  along.  It  is  only  after  gaining  full 
political  supremacy  by  a  revolution  (peaceful  or  otherwise) 
that  they  are  to  socialize  industry  step  by  step.  Marx 
and  his  successors  do  not  advise  the  working  people  to 
concentrate  their  efforts  on  the  centralization  of  the  instru- 
ments of  production  in  the  hands  of  governments  as  they 
now  are  (capitalistic),  but  only  after  they  have  become  com- 
pletely transformed  into  the  tools  of  the  working  people 
"organized  as  the  ruling  class,"  to  use  Marx's  expression.  (1) 

The  central  idea  of  the  "reformist"  Socialists  is,  on  the 
contrary,  that  before  Socialism  has  captured  any  govern- 
ment, and  even  before  it  has  become  an  imminent  menace, 
it  is  necessary  that  Socialists  should  take  the  lead  in  the  work 
of  social  reform,  and  should  devote  their  energies  very  largely 
to  this  object.  It  is  recognized  that  capitalistic  or  non- 
Socialist  reformers  have  taken  up  many  of  the  most  urgent 
reforms  and  will  take  up  more  of  them,  and  that  being  polit- 
ically more  powerful  they  are  in  a  better  position  to  put  them 
into  effect.  But  the  "reformist"  Socialists,  far  from  allowing 
this  fact  to  discourage  them,  allege  it  as  the  chief  reason  why 
they  must  also  enter  the  field.  The  non-Socialist  reformers, 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"   WITHIN  THE  MOVEMENT    119 

they  say,  are  engaged  in  a  popular  work,  and  the  Socialists 
must  go  in,  help  to  bring  about  the  reforms,  and  claim  part 
of  the  credit.  They  then  propose  to  attribute  whatever 
success  they  may  have  gained,  not  to  the  fact  that  they  also 
have  become  reformers  like  the  rest,  but  to  the  fact  that  they 
happen  to  be  Socialists.  The  non-Socialist  reformers,  they 
say  again,  are  gaining  a  valuable  experience  in  government; 
the  Socialists  must  go  and  do  likewise.  Reforms  which  were 
steps  in  capitalism  thus  become  to  them  steps  in  Socialism. 
It  is  not  the  fashion  of  "reformists"  to  try  to  claim  that  they 
are  very  great  steps  —  on  the  contrary,  they  usually  belittle 
them,  but  it  is  believed  that  agitation  for  such  reforms  as 
capitalist  governments  allow,  is  the  best  way  to  gain  the  pub- 
lic ear,  the  best  kind  of  political  practice,  the  most  fruitful 
mode  of  activity. 

One  of  the  leading  American  Socialist  weeklies  has  made 
a  very  clear  and  typical  statement  of  this  policy :  — 

"If  we  leave  the  field  of  achievement  to  the  reformer,  then  it  is  going 
to  be  hard  to  persuade  people  that  reform  is  not  sufficient.  If  Socialists 
take  every  step  forward  as  part  of  a  general  revolutionary  program,  and 
never  fail  to  point  out  that  these  things  are  but  steps  forward  in 
a  stairway  that  mean  nothing  save  as  they  lead  to  a  higher  stage 
of  society,  then  the  Socialist  movement  will  carry  along  with  it  all 
those  who  are  fighting  the  class  struggle.  The  hopelessness  of  re- 
form as  a  goal  will  become  apparent  when  its  real  position  in  social 
evolution  is  pointed  out."  (2) 

The  leading  questions  this  proposed  policy  arouses  will 
at  once  come  to  the  reader's  mind :  Will  the  capitalist  re- 
formers in  control  of  national  governments  allow  the  Socialist 
"reformists"  to  play  the  leading  part  in  their  own  chosen 
field  of  effort?  If  people  tend  to  be  satisfied  with  reform, 
what  difference  does  it  make  as  to  the  ultimate  political  or 
social  ideals  of  those  who  bring  it  about  ?  If  the  steps  taken 
by  reformers  and  "reformists"  are  the  same,  by  what  alchemy 
can  the  latter  transform  them  into  parts  of  a  revolutionary 
program  ? 

Mr.  Simons,  nevertheless,  presents  this  "reformism"  as 
the  proper  policy  for  the  American  Party  at  its  present 
stage :  — 

"It  has  become  commonplace,"  he  says,  "to  say  that  the  Socialist 
movement  of  the  United  States  has  entered  upon  a  new  stage,  and 
that  with  the  coming  of  many  local  victories  and  not  a  few  in  State 


120  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

and  nation,  Socialist  activity  must  partake  of  the  character  of  prep- 
aration for  the  control  of  society. 

"Yet  our  propaganda  has  been  slow  to  reflect  this  change.  This 
is  natural.  For  more  than  a  generation  the  important  thing  was  to 
advertise  Socialism  and  to  inculcate  a  few  doctrinal  truths.  This 
naturally  developed  a  literature  based  on  broad  assertions,  sensa- 
tional exposures,  vigorous  denunciations,  and  revival-like  appeals 
that  resulted  in  sectarian  organization. 

"It  has  been  hard  to  break  away  from  this  stage.  It  is  easier  to 
make  a  propaganda  of  '  sound  and  fury '  than  of  practical  achieve- 
ment. Once  the  phrases  have  been  learned,  it  is  much  simpler  to 
issue  a  manifesto  than  to  organize  a  precinct.  It  always  requires 
less  effort  to  talk  about  a  class  struggle  than  to  fight  it ;  to  defy  the 
lightning  of  international  class  rule  than  to  properly  administer 
a  township.  Yet,  if  Socialism  is  inevitable,  if  the  Socialist  Party  is 
soon  to  rule  in  State  and  nation,  then  it  is  of  the  highest  importance 
that  Socialists  should  know  something  of  the  forces  with  which  they 
are  going  to  deal ;  something  of  the  lines  of  evolution  which  they 
are  going  to  further ;  something  of  the  government  which  they  are 
going  to  administer;  something  of  the  task  which  they  profess  to 
be  eager  to  accomplish." 

It  might  seem  that,  after  the  first  stage  has  been  passed, 
the  next  promising  way  to  carry  Socialism  forward,  the  way 
actually  to  "fight"  the  class  struggle  and  to  achieve  something 
practical  is,  as  Mr.  Simons  says,  to  talk  less  and  to  go  in  and 
"administer  a  township."  Revolutionary  Socialists  agree 
that  advertising,  the  teaching  of  a  few  basic  doctrines,  emo- 
tional appeals,  and  the  criticism  of  present  society  have 
hitherto  taken  up  the  principal  share  of  the  Socialist  agita- 
tion, and  that  all  these  together  are  not  sufficient  to  enable 
Socialists  to  achieve  their  aim,  or  even  to  carry  the  move- 
ment much  farther.  They  agree  that  activity  is  the  best 
teacher  and  that  the  class  struggle  must  be  actually  fought. 
But  they  propose  other  activities  and  feel  that  a  whole  inter- 
mediate stage  of  Socialist  evolution,  including  the  capture 
of  national  governments,  lies  between  the  Socialist  agitation 
of  the  past  and  any  administration  of  a  township  that  can  do 
anything  to  bring  recruits  to  Socialism  and  not  merely  to 
"State  Socialist"  reform. 

This  is  the  view  of  the  revolutionary  majority  of  the  inter- 
national movement.  But  the  "reformist"  minority  is  both 
large  and  powerful,  and  since  it  draws  far  more  recruits  than 
does  the  revolutionary  majority  from  the  ranks  of  the  book 
educated  and  capitalistic  reformers,  its  spokesmen  and  writers 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"  WITHIN  THE  MOVEMENT    121 

attract  a  disproportionately  large  share  of  attention  in  capi- 
talistic and  reform  circles,  and  thus  give  rise  to  widespread 
misunderstanding  as  to  the  position  of  the  majority. 

Not  only  are  both  the  more  or  less  Socialistic  parties  in 
Great  Britain  and  the  Labour  parties  of  the  British  colonies 
"reformist"  to  the  extent  that  they  are  either  entirely  outside 
or  practically  independent  of  the  international  movement, 
but  the  parties  of  Belgium,  Italy,  and  South  Germany  have, 
for  a  number  of  years,  concentrated  their  attention  almost 
exclusively  on  such  reforms  as  the  capitalist  governments 
of  their  countries  are  likely  to  allow  to  be  enacted  —  the 
dominant  idea  being  to  obtain  all  that  can  be  obtained  for 
the  working  classes  at  the  present  moment,  even  when,  for 
this  purpose,  it  becomes  necessary  to  subordinate  or  to  com- 
promise entirely  the  plans  and  hopes  of  the  future.  And  it 
is  only  within  the  last  year  or  two  that  the  revolutionary 
wing  in  these  last-named  countries  has  begun  to  grow  rapidly 
again  and  promises  to  regain  control. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Socialist  "reformism"  has 
become  very  widespread.  President  Gompers  of  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  of  Labor,  who  had  every  facility  of  meeting 
European  Socialists  and  unionists  on  a  recent  tour,  made 
some  observations  which  are  by  no  means  without  a  certain 
foundation.  (3)  He  says  that  he  talked  to  these  people  about 
Socialism  and,  though  they  all  knew  "the  litany,  service, 
and  invocation"  and  the  Socialist  text  for  the  coming  revo- 
lution, they  preserved  this  knowledge  for  their  speech 
making,  while  in  conversation  it  all  faded  away  into  the  misty 
realms  of  the  imagination.  "Positively,"  writes  Mr.  Gom- 
pers, "I  never  found  one  man  in  my  trip  ready  to  go  further 
into  constructive  Socialism  than  to  repeat  perfunctorily  its 
time-worn  generalities.  On  the  other  hand,  I  met  men  whom 
I  knew  years  ago,  either  personally  or  through  correspondence 
or  by  their  work,  as  active  propagandists  of  the  Socialists' 
theoretical  creed,  who  are  now  devoting  their  energies  to 
one  or  other  of  the  practical  forms  of  social  betterment  — 
trade  unionism,  cooperation,  legal  protection  to  the  workers 
—  and  who  could  not  be  moved  to  speak  of  utopianism  [Mr. 
Gompers's  epithet  for  Socialism], "  It  is  doubtless  true,  as 
Mr.  Gompers  says,  that  the  individuals  he  questioned  have 
practically  abandoned  their  Socialism,  even  though  they 
remain  members  of  the  Socialist  parties.  For  if  such  activ- 
ities as  he  mentions  could  be  claimed  as  "Socialism," 


122  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

then  there  is  very  little  public  work  an  intelligent  and  honest 
workingman  can  undertake,  no  matter  how  conservative 
it  may  be,  which  is  not  to  go  by  that  name. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  reformists  is,  indeed,  frankly 
to  claim,  either  that  all  the  capitalist-collectivist  reforms  of 
the  period  are  Socialist  in  origin,  or  that  they  cannot  be  put 
into  execution  without  Socialist  aid,  or  that  such  reforms 
are  enacted  only  as  concessions,  for  fear  that  Socialism  would 
otherwise  sweep  everything  before  it. 

Rev.  Carl  D.  Thompson,  formerly  a  Socialist  member  of 
the  Wisconsin  Legislature,  and  now  Town  Clerk  of  Mil- 
waukee, for  example,  claims  Millerand  as  a  Socialist  minister, 
though  the  French  Socialist  Party  agreed  by  an  almost 
unanimous  vote  that  he  is  not  to  be  so  considered,  and  attrib- 
utes to  this  minister  a  whole  series  of  reforms  in  which  he 
was  only  a  single  factor  among  many  others.  Many  im- 
portant legislative  changes  which  have  taken  place  in  Italy 
since  1900,  Mr.  Thompson  accredits  to  the  opportunist 
Socialist  leader,  Turati,  with  his  handful  of  members  of  the 
chamber,  though  it  is  certain  that  even  at  the  present  moment 
the  Socialists  have  not  yet  arrived  at  a  position  where  they 
can  claim  that  they  are  shaping  governmental  action  as 
strongly  as  their  Radical  allies.  Mr.  Thompson  states  that 
the  "Socialist  Independent  Labour  Party"  of  Great  Britain 
had  thirty-four  representatives  in  Parliament  at  a  time  when 
the  larger  non-Socialist  Labour  Party,  which  included  it,  had 
only  this  number.  He  claimed  that  a  majority  of  this  latter 
party  were  Socialists,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  only  a  minor- 
ity were  members  of  any  Socialist  party  even  in  the  ultra- 
moderate  sense  in  which  the  term  is  employed  in  England,  and 
he  accredits  all  the  chief  reforms  brought  about  by  the 
Liberal  government  to  this  handful  of  "Socialists,"  including 
even  the  old  age  pensions  which  were  almost  unanimously 
favored  by  the  old  parties.  (4)  He  even  lists  among  his 
signs  of  the  progress  of  Socialism  the  fact  that,  at  the  time 
of  writing,  fifty-nine  governments  owned  their  railways, 
while  a  large  number  had  instituted  postal  savings  banks. 

The  same  tendency  to  claim  everything  good  as  Socialism 
is  very  common  in  Great  Britain.  Even  the  relatively 
advanced  Socialist,  Victor  Grayson,  avoids  the  question 
whether  there  is  any  social  reform  which  is  not  Socialism,  (5) 
and  it  seems  to  be  the  general  position  of  British  Socialists 
that  every  real  reform  is  Socialism  —  more  or  less. 


"STATE  SOCIALISM"  WITHIN  THE  MOVEMENT    123 

August  Bebel,  on  the  contrary,  is  quoted  as  saying,  "It 
is  not  a  question  of  whether  we  achieve  this  or  that;  for  us  the 
principal  thing  is  that  we  put  forward  certain  claims  which 
no  other  party  can  put  forward."  The  great  German  Socialist 
sees  clearly  that  if  Socialism  is  to  distinguish  itself  from  the 
other  parties  it  must  rest  its  claims  solely  on  demands  which 
are  made  exclusively  by  Socialists.  This  is  what  those  who 
claim  that  every  reform  is  Socialism,  or  is  best  promoted  by 
Socialists,  fail  to  see.  By  trying  to  make  the  word,  "Social- 
ism" mean  everything,  they  inevitably  make  it  mean  nothing. 

It  is  true  that  for  a.  time  the  very  advertisement  of  the 
word  "Socialism,"  by  this  method,  and  even  the  widest  and 
loosest  use  of  Socialist  phrases  had  the  effect  of  making  people 
think  about  Socialist  principles.  But  this  cannot  be  long 
continued  before  the  public  begins  to  ask  questions  concern- 
ing the  exact  meaning  of  such  expressions  as  applied  to  every- 
day life.  The  Socialist  paper,  Justice,  of  London,  urged  that 
"the  very  suggestion  that  any  of  the  Liberal  members  of 
Parliament  were  connected  with  the  Socialist  movement 
created  a  more  profound  impression  than  all  they  ever  said 
or  did."  This  is  doubtless  true,  but  when  the  novelty  has 
once  worn  off  of  this  situation  it  is  what  so-called  Socialists 
do  that  alone  will  count. 

For  example,  the  leading  reformist  Socialist  of  Great 
Britain,  Mr.  J.  R.  MacDonald,  wishes  to  persuade  the 
Socialists  of  America  to  carry  on  "a  propaganda  of  immedi- 
ately practicable  changes,  justified  and  enriched  by  the  fact 
that  they  are  the  realization  of  great  ideals."  (6)  Such  a  re- 
duction of  the  ideal  to  what  is  actually  going  on,  or  may 
be  immediately  brought  about,  makes  it  quite  mean- 
ingless. Evidently  the  immediately  practicable  changes 
that  Mr.  MacDonald  suggests  are  themselves  his  ideal,  and 
what  he  calls  the  ideal  consists  rather  of  phrases  and  enthusi- 
asms that  are  useful,  chiefly,  for  the  purpose  of  advertising 
his  Party  and  creating  enthusiasm  for  it. 

The  underlying  motive  of  the  "reformists"  when  they 
claim  non-Socialist  reforms  as  their  own,  and  relegate  prac- 
tically all  distinctively  Socialist  principles  and  methods  to 
the  vague  and  distant  future,  is  undoubtedly  their  belief 
that  reforms  rather  than  Socialism  appeal  to  the  working 
class. 

"The  mass  of  workingmen  will  support  the  Socialist 
Party,"  a  Socialist  reformer  wrote  recently,  "not  because 


124  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

they  are  being  robbed  under  capitalism,  but  because  they 
are  made  to  understand  that  this  party  can  be  relied  upon  to 
advance  certain  measures  which  they  know  will  benefit  them 
and  their  families  here  and  now. 

"The  constructive  Socialist  believes  that  the  cooperative 
commonwealth  will  be  realized,  not  by  holding  it  up  in 
contrast  to  capitalism,  —  but  only  by  the  working  class 
fighting  first  for  this  thing,  then  for  that  thing,  until  private 
enterprise  is  undermined  by  its  rewards  being  eaten  up  by 
taxes  and  its  incentive  removed  by  the  inroads  made  upon 
profits." 

The  working  people,  that  is,  are  not  intelligent  enough  to 
realize  that  they  are  "robbed  under  capitalism,"  and  are 
not  getting  their  proportionate  share  of  the  increase  of  wealth, 
nor  courageous  enough  to  take  up  the  fight  to  overthrow 
capitalism ;  they  appreciate  only  small  advances  from  day  to 
day,  and  every  step  by  which  "private  capitalism"  is  replaced 
by  State  action  is  such  an  advance,  while  these  advances  are 
to  be  secured  chiefly  through  a  Socialist  Party.  In  a  word, 
the  Socialist  Party  is  to  ask  support  because  it  can  accomplish 
more  than  other  parties  for  social  reform  under  capitalism, 
which  at  the  present  period  means  "State  Socialism." 

For  while  "reformist"  Socialists  are  taking  a  position 
nearly  identical  with  that  of  the  non-Socialist  reformers, 
the  latter  are  coming  to  adopt  a  political  policy  almost 
identical  with  that  of  the  reformist  Socialists.  I  have 
noted  that  one  of  America's  leading  economists  advises 
all  reformers,  whether  they  are  Socialists  or  not,  to  join  the 
Socialist  Party.  Since  both  "reformist"  Socialists  and  "So- 
cialistic" reformers  are  interested  in  labor  legislation,  public 
ownership,  democratic  political  reforms,  graduated  taxation, 
and  the  governmental  appropriation  of  the  unearned  incre- 
ment in  land,  why  should  they  not  walk  side  by  side  for  a 
very  considerable  distance  behind  "a  somewhat  red  banner," 
and  "  without  troubling  themselves  about  the  unlike  goals  " 
—  as  Professor  John  Bates  Clark  recommends?  The 
phrases  of  Socialism  have  become  so  popular  that  their 
popularity  constitutes  its  chief  danger.  At  a  time  when  so 
many  professed  anti-Socialists  are  agreeing  with  the  New 
York  Independent  that,  though  it  is  easy  to  have  too  much 
Socialism,  at  least  "we  want  more"  than  we  have,  it  becomes 
exceedingly  difficult  for  non-Socialists  to  learn  what  Socialism 
is  and  to  distinguish  it  from  innumerable  reform  movements. 


"STATE   SOCIALISM':  WITHIN  THE  MOVEMENT    125 

Less  than  a  decade  ago  the  pros  and  cons  of  Socialism  were 
much  debated.  Now  it  is  usually  only  a  question  of  Social- 
ism sooner  or  later,  more  or  less.  Socialism  a  century  or 
two  hence,  or  in  supposed  installments  of  a  fraction  of  a  per 
cent,  is  an  almost  universally  popular  idea.  For  the  Social- 
ists this  necessitates  a  revolutionary  change  in  their  tactics, 
literature,  and  habit  of  thought.  They  were  formerly  forced 
to  fight  those  who  could  not  find  words  strong  enough  to 
express  their  hostility;  they  are  rapidly  being  compelled 
to  give  their  chief  attention  to  those  who  claim  to  be  friends. 
The  day  of  mere  repression  is  drawing  to  a  close,  the  day  of 
cajolery  is  at  hand. 

Liebknecht  saw  what  was  happening  years  ago,  and,  in 
one  of  the  most  widely  circulated  pamphlets  the  Socialists 
have  ever  published  (No  Compromise),  issued  an  impressive 
warning  to  the  movement :  — 

"The  enemy  who  comes  to  us  with  an  open  visor  we  face  with 
a  smile;  to  set  our  feet  upon  his  neck  is  mere  play  for  us.  The 
stupidly  brutal  acts  of  violence  of  police  politicians,  the  outrages  of 
anti-Socialist  laws,  penitentiary  bills  —  these  only  arouse  feelings 
of  pitying  contempt ;  the  enemy,  however,  that  reaches  out  the  hand 
to  us  for  a  political  alliance,  and  intrudes  himself  upon  us  as  a  friend 
and  a  brother,  —  him  and  him  alone  have  we  to  fear. 

"  Our  fortress  can  withstand  every  assault  —  it  cannot  be  stormed 
nor  taken  from  us  by  siege  —  it  can  only  fall  when  we  ourselves  open 
the  doors  to  the  enemy  and  take  him  into  our  ranks  as  a  fellow  comrade." 

"We  shall  almost  never  go  right,"  says  Liebknecht,  "if 
we  do  what  our  enemies  applaud."  And  we  find,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  that  the  enemies  of  Socialism  never  fail  to  applaud 
any  tendency  of  the  party  to  compromise  those  acting  prin- 
ciples that  have  brought  it  to  the  point  it  has  now  reached. 
For  Liebknecht  shows  that  the  power  which  now  causes  a 
Socialist  alliance  to  be  sought  after  in  some  countries  even 
by  Socialism's  most  bitter  enemies  would  never  have  arisen 
had  the  party  not  clung  closely  to  its  guiding  principle,  the 
policy  of  "no  compromise." 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  showing,  from  the  public  life  and 
opinion  of  our  day,  how  widespread  is  this  spirit  of  political 
compromise  or  opportunism;  nor  in  proving  that  it  enters 
into  the  conduct  of  many  Socialists.  Such  an  opposition 
to  the  effective  application  of  broad  and  far-sighted  plans 
to  practical  politics  is  especially  common,  for  historical 
reasons,  in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  In  this 


126  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

country  it  has  been  especially  marked  in  Milwaukee  from 
the  earliest  days  of  the  Socialist  movement  there.  In  1893 
the  Milwaukee  Vorwaerts  announced  that  "if  you  demand  too 
much  at  one  time  you  are  likely  not  to  get  anything,"  and 
that  "nothing  more  ought  to  be  demanded  but  what  is 
attainable  at  a  given  time  and  under  given  circumstances."  (7) 
It  will  be  noticed  that  this  is  a  clear  expression  of  a  principle 
of  action  diametrically  opposite  to  that  adopted  by  the  inter- 
national movement  as  stated  by  Bebel  and  Liebknecht. 
Socialists  are  chiefly  distinguished  from  the  other  parties 
by  the  fact  that  they  concentrate  their  attention  on  demands 
beyond  "what  is  attainable  at  a  given  time  and  under  given 
circumstances."  They  might  attempt  to  distinguish  them- 
selves by  claiming  that  they  stand  for  the  ultimate  goal  of 
Socialism,  though  their  immediate  program  is  the  same  as  that 
of  other  parties,  but  any  politician  can  do  that  —  as  has  been 
shown  recently  by  the  action  of  Briand,  Millerand,  Ferri,  and 
other  former  Socialists  in  France  and  Italy  —  and  the  day 
seems  near  when  hosts  of  politicians  will  follow  their  example. 

Any  static  or  dogmatic  definition  of  Socialism,  like  any 
purely  idealistic  formulation,  no  matter  how  revolutionary 
or  accurate  it  may  be,  necessarily  invites  purely  opportu- 
nist methods.  A  widely  accepted  static  definition  declares 
that  Socialism  is  "the  collective  ownership  of  the  means  of 
production  and  distribution  under  democratic  management." 
As  an  ultimate  ideal  or  a  theory  of  social  evolution,  this  is 
accepted  also  by  many  collectivist  opponents  of  Socialism, 
and  may  soon  be  accepted  generally.  The  chief  possibility 
for  a  difference  of  opinion  among  most  practical  persons, 
whether  Socialists  or  not,  must  come  from  the  questions : 
How  soon  ?  By  what  means  ? 

Evidently  such  a  social  revolution  is  to  be  achieved  only 
by  stages.  What  are  these  stages?  Many  are  tempted 
to  give  the  easy  answer,  "More  and  more  collectivism  and 
more  and  more  democracy."  But  progress  in  political 
democracy,  if  it  came  first,  might  be  accompanied  by  an 
artificial  revivial  of  small-scale  capitalism,  and  a  new  majority 
made  up  largely  of  contented  farmer  capitalists  might  put 
Socialism  farther  off  than  it  is  to-day.  Similarly,  if  install- 
ments of  collectivism  came  first,  they  might  lead  us  in  the 
direction  of  the  Prussia  of  to-day.  And  finally,  even  a 
combination  of  democracy  and  collectivism,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  might  produce  a  majority  composed  in  part  of  small 


"STATE   SOCIALISM"  WITHIN  THE  MOVEMENT    127 

capitalists  and  favored  government  employees.  Collectivist 
democracy  completed  or  far  advanced  would  insure  the 
coming  of  Socialism.  But  a  policy  that  merely  gave  us  more 
collectivism  plus  more  democracy,  might  carry  us  equally 
well  either  towards  Socialism  or  in  the  opposite  direction. 
The  ultimate  goal  of  present  society  does  not  give  us  a  ready- 
made  plan  of  action  by  a  mathematical  process  of  dividing 
its  attainment  into  so  many  mechanical  stages. 

A  very  similar  political  shibboleth,  often  used  by  Party 
Socialists,  is  "  Let  the  nation  own  the  trusts."  Let  us  assume 
that  the  constitution  of  this  country  were  made  as  democratic 
as  that  of  Australia  or  Switzerland,  and  the  suffrage  made 
absolutely  universal  (as  to  adults).  Let  us  assume,  moreover, 
that  the  " trusts,"  including  railways,  public  service  corpo- 
rations, banks,  mines,  oil,  and  lumber  interests,  the  steel- 
making  and  meat-packing  industries,  and  the  few  other 
important  businesses  where  monopolies  are  established,  were 
owned  and  operated  by  governments  of  this  character. 
Taken  together  with  the  social  and  labor  reforms  that  would 
accompany  such  a  regime,  this  would  be  "State  Socialism," 
but  it  would  not  necessarily  constitute  even  a  step  towards 
Socialism  —  and  this  for  two  reasons. 

The  industries  mentioned  employ  probably  less  than  a  third 
of  the  population,  and,  even  if  we  add  other  government 
employments,  the  total  would  be  little  more  than  a  third. 
The  majority  of  the  community  would  still  be  divided  among 
the  owners  or  employees  of  the  competitive  manufacturing 
establishments,  stores,  farms,  etc.,  —  and  the  professional 
classes.  With  most  of  these  the  struggle  of  Capital  and 
Labor  would  continue  and,  since  they  are  in  a  majority,  would 
be  carried  over  into  the  field  of  government,  setting  the  higher 
paid  against  the  more  poorly  paid  employees,  as  in  the  Prussia 
of  to-day. 

And,  secondly,  even  if  we  supposed  that  a  considerable 
part  or  all  of  the  government  employees  received  what  they 
felt  to  be,  on  the  whole,  a  fair  treatment  from  the  govern- 
ment, and  if  these,  together  with  shopkeepers,  farm  owners, 
or  lessees,  and  satisfied  professional  and  salaried  men,  made 
up  a  majority,  we  would  still  be  as  far  as  ever  from  a  social, 
economic,  or  industrial  democracy.  What  we  would  have 
would  be  a  class  society,  based  on  a  purely  political  democ- 
racy, and  economically,  on  a  partly  private  (or  individualist) 
and  partly  public  (or  collectivist)  capitalism. 


128  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"Equal  opportunities  for  all"  would  also  mean  Socialism. 
But  equal  opportunities  for  a  limited  number,  no  matter 
if  that  number  be  much  larger  than  at  present,  may  merely 
strengthen  capitalism  by  drawing  the  more  able  of  the 
workers  away  from  their  class  and  into  the  service  of  capital- 
ism. Or  opportunities  more  equal  for  all,  without  a  com- 
plete equalization,  may  merely  increase  the  competition  of 
the  lower  classes  for  middle-class  positions  and  so  secure 
to  the  capitalists  cheaper  professional  service.  So-called 
steps  towards  equal  opportunities,  even  if  rapid  enough 
to  produce  a  very  large  surplus  of  trained  applicants  for 
whom  capitalism  fails  to  provide  and  so  increase  the  army  of 
malcontents,  may  simply  delay  the  day  of  Socialism. 

I  have  spoken  of  Socialists  whose  underlying  object  is  oppor- 
tunistic— to  obtain  immediate  results  in  legislation  no  matter 
how  unrelated  they  may  be  to  Socialism.  Others  are  im- 
pelled either  by  an  inactive  idealism,  or  by  attachment  to 
abstract  dogma  for  its  own  sake.  Their  custom  is  in  the  one 
instance  to  make  the  doctrine  so  rigid  that  it  has  no  imme- 
diate application,  and  in  the  other  to  "elevate  the  ideal"  so 
high,  to  remove  it  so  far  into  the  future,  that  it  is  scarcely 
visible  for  the  present-day  purposes,  and  then  to  declare 
that  present-day  activity,  even  if  theoretically  subject  to 
an  ideal  or  a  doctrine,  must  be  guided  also  by  quite  other 
and  "practical"  principles,  which  are  never  clearly  denned 
and  sometimes  are  scarcely  mentioned.  Mr.  Edmond  Kelly, 
for  instance,  puts  his  "Collectivism  Proper,"  or  Socialism, 
so  far  into  the  future  that  he  is  forced  to  confess  that  it 
will  be  attained  only  "ultimately,"  or  perhaps  not  at  all, 
while  "Partial  Collectivism  may  prove  to  be  the  last  stage 
consistent  with  human  imperfection."  (8)  He  acknowledges 
that  this  Partial  Collectivism  ("State  Socialism")  is  not 
the  ideal,  and  it  is  evident  that  his  ideal  is  too  far  ahead  or 
too  rigid  or  theoretical,  to  have  any  connection  with  the  ideals 
of  the  Socialist  movement,  which  arise  exclusively  out  of 
actual  life. 

This  opportunism  defends  itself  by  an  appeal  to  the  "evo- 
lutionary" argument,  that  progress  must  necessarily  be 
extremely  slow.  Progress  in  this  view,  like  Darwin's  varia- 
tions, takes  place  a  step  at  a  time,  and  its  steps  are  infini- 
tesimally  small.  The  Worker  of  Brisbane,  Australia,  says: 
"The  complicated  complaint  from  which  society  suffers 
can  only  be  cured  by  the  administration  of  homeopathic 


"STATE   SOCIALISM"  WITHIN  THE  .MOVEMENT    129 

doses.  .  .  .  Inculcate  Socialism?  Yes,  but  grab  all  you 
can  to  be  going  on  with.  Preach  revolutionary  thoughts  ? 
Yes,  but  rely  on  the  ameliorative  method.  .  .  .  The  minds 
of  men  are  of  slow  development,  and  we  must  be  content, 
we  fear,  to  accomplish  our  revolution  piecemeal,  bit  by  bit, 
till  a  point  is  come  to  when,  by  accumulative  process,  a  series 
of  small  changes  amounts  to  the  Great  Change.  The  most 
important  revolutions  are  those  that  happen  quietly  without 
anything  particularly  noticeable  seeming  to  occur." 

What  is  a  Great  Change  depends  entirely,  in  the  revolution- 
ist's view,  on  how  rapidly  it  is  brought  about,  and  "revolu- 
tionary thoughts"  are  empty  abstractions  unless  accompanied 
by  revolutionary  methods.  Once  it  is  assumed  that  there 
is  plenty  of  time,  the  difference  between  the  conservative 
and  the  radical  disappears.  For  even  those  who  have  the 
most  to  lose  realize  in  these  days  the  inevitability  of  "evo- 
lution." The  radical  is  not  he  who  looks  forward  to  great 
changes  after  long  periods  of  time,  but  he  who  will  not  tolerate 
unnecessary  delay  —  who  is  unwilling  to  accept  the  so-called 
installments  or  ameliorations  offered  by  the  conservative 
and  privileged  (even  when  considerable)  as  being  satisfactory 
or  as  necessarily  contributing  to  his  purpose  at  all.  The  radi- 
cal spirit  is  rather  that  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  when  he  said, 
"When  the  object  is  to  raise  the  permanent  condition  of  a 
people,  small  means  do  not  merely  produce  small  effects; 
they  produce  no  effect  at  all." 

Some  -political  standard  and  quantitative  measure  is  as 
necessary  to  social  progress  as  similar  standards  are  neces- 
sary in  other  relations.  If  the  political  standard  of  the 
Socialists  is  so  low  as  to  regard  social  reform  programs  which 
on  the  whole  are  more  helpful  to  the  capitalists  than  to  other 
classes  —  and  therefore  "produce  no  effect  at  all"  as  far 
as  the  Socialist  purpose  is  concerned  —  as  if  they  were 
concessions,  then  it  follows  naturally  that  the  Socialists  will 
be  ready  to  pay  a  price  for  such  concessions.  They  will 
not  only  view  as  a  relative  gain  over  the  capitalists  measures 
which  are  primarily  aimed  at  advancing  capitalist  interests, 
but  they  will  inevitably  be  ready  at  a  price  to  relax  to  some 
extent  the  intensity  of  their  opposition  to  other  measures  that 
are  capitalistic  and  antipopular.  For  instance,  if  old  age 
pensions  are  considered  by  the  workers  to  be  an  epoch-making 
reform  and  a  concession,  they  may  be  granted  by  the  capital- 
ists all  the  more  readily.  But  if  thus  overvalued,  advantage 


130  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

will  be  taken  of  this  feeling,  and  they  will  in  all  probability 
be  accompanied  by  restrictions  of  the  rights  of  labor  organiza- 
tions. On  the  other  hand,  if  such  pensions,  however  desir- 
able, are  considered  as  a  reform  which  will  result  indirectly 
in  great  savings  to  the  capitalist  classes,  to  public  and  private 
charitable  institutions,  to  employers,  etc.,  then  the  Socialists 
will  accept  them  and,  if  possible,  hasten  their  enactment, 
— but,  like  the  French,  'will  refuse  to  pay  for  them  out  of 
their  own  pockets  (even  through  indirect  taxation,  as  the 
British  workingmen  were  forced  to  do)  and  will  allow  them 
neither  to  be  used  as  a  cloak  for  reaction,  nor  as  a  substitute 
for  more  fundamental  reforms. 

In  other  words,  a  rational  political  standard  would  teach 
that  a  certain  measure  of  political  progress  is  normal  in 
capitalist  society  as  a  result  of  the  general  increase  of  wealth 
and  the  general  improvement  in  political  and  economic  or- 
ganization, especially  now  that  the  great  change  to  State 
capitalism  is  taking  place;  while  reforms  of  an  entirely 
different  character  are  needed  if  there  is  to  be  any  relative 
advance  of  the  political  and  economic  power  of  the  masses, 
any  tendency  that  might  lead  in  the  course  of  a  reasonable 
period  of  time  to  economic  and  social  democracy. 

"A  new  and  fair  division  of  the  goods  and  rights  of  this 
world  should  be  the  main  object  of  all  those  who  conduct 
human  affairs,"  said  De  Tocqueville.  The  economic  progress 
and  political  reforms  of  this  capitalistic  age  are  doubtless 
bringing  us  nearer  to  the  day  when  a  new  and  fair  division 
of  goods  and  rights  can  take  place,  and  they  will  make  the 
great  transformation  easier  when  it  comes,  but  this  does  not 
mean  that  in  themselves  they  constitute  even  a  first  step 
in  the  new  dispensation.  That  they  do  is  denied  by  all  the 
most  representative  Socialists  from  Marx  to  Bebel. 

The  most  bitter  opponents  of  Socialism,  like  its  most 
thoroughgoing  advocates,  have  come  to  see  that  the  whole 
character  of  the  movement  has  grown  up  from  its  unwilling- 
ness to  compromise  the  aggressive  tactics  indispensable  for 
the  revolutionary  changes  it  has  in  view,  until  it  has  become 
obvious  that,  just  as  Socialism  as  a  social  movement  is  the  op- 
posite pole  to  State  capitalism,  so  Socialism  as  a  social  method 
is  the  opposite  pole  to  opportunism. 


CHAPTER  II 
"REFORMISM"  IN  FRANCE,  ITALY,  AND  BELGIUM 

THE  Socialist  parties  in  Italy,  Belgium,  and  France,  where 
"reformism"  is  strong,  are  progressing  less  rapidly  than  the 
Socialists  of  these  countries  had  reason  to  expect,  and  far  less 
rapidly  than  in  other  countries.  It  would  seem  that  in  these 
cases  the  same  cause  that  drives  the  movement  to  abandon 
aggressive  tactics  also  checks  its  numerical  growth. 

For  example,  it  is  a  matter  of  principle  among  Socialists 
generally  to  contest  every  possible  elected  position  and  to 
nominate  candidates  in  every  possible  district.  The  revo- 
lutionary French  Socialist,  Jules  Guesde,  even  stated  to  the 
writer  that  if  candidates  could  be  run  by  the  party  in  every 
district  of  France,  and  if  the  vote  could  in  this  way  be  increased, 
he  would  be  willing  to  see  the  number  of  Socialists  in  Parlia- 
ment reduced  materially,  even  to  a  handful  —  the  object 
being  to  teach  Socialism  everywhere,  and  to  prepare  for  future 
victories  by  concentrating  on  a  few  promising  districts 
rather  than  to  make  any  effort  to  become  a  political  factor, 
at  the  present  moment.  Similarly,  August  Bebel  declared 
that  he  would  prefer  that  in  the  elections  of  1912  the  Socialists 
should  get  4,000,000  votes  and  50  Reichstag  members  rather 
than  3,000,000  votes  and  100  members.  In  the  latter  case, 
of  course,  the  Socialist  members  would  have  been  elected 
largely  on  the  second  ballot  by  the  votes  of  non-Socialists. 

The  policy  actually  carried  out  in  both  Italy  and  France 
has  of  late  been  exactly  the  opposite  to  that  recommended 
by  Guesde  and  Bebel.  In  the  elections  of  1909,  the  Socialist 
Party  of  Italy  put  up  114  less  candidates  for  Parliament  than 
they  had  in  the  election  of  1904,  while  the  number  of  candi- 
dates nominated  in  France  was  50  less  in  1910  than  it  had 
been  in  1906.  The  consequence  was  that  the  French  Party 
received  an  increase  of  votes  less  absolutely  than  that  gained 
by  the  conservative  republicans  and  scarcely  greater  than 
that  of  the  radicals,  while  in  Italy  the  Socialists  actually  cast 
a  smaller  percentage  of  the  total  vote  in  1909  than  they  did 
in  1904,  while  the  party  membership  materially  decreased. 

131 


132  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

This  policy  had  a  double  result;  it  sent  more  Socialists 
to  the  Parliaments,  in  each  case  increasing  the  number  of 
members  by  about  50  per  cent ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  helped 
materially  those  radical  and  rival  parties  most  nearly  related 
to  the  Socialists,  for  in  many  districts  where  the  latter  had 
withdrawn  their  candidates  these  parties  necessarily  received 
the  Socialist  vote.  A  vast  field  of  agitation  was  practically 
deserted,  and  even  when  the  agitation  was  carried  on,  the 
distinction  between  the  Socialist  Party  and  the  parties  it 
had  favored,  and  which  in  turn  favored  it,  became  less 
marked,  and  the  chances  of  the  spread  of  Socialism  in  the 
future  were  correspondingly  diminished. 

In  France  it  is  this  policy  which  has  brought  forward  the 
so-called  "  independent  Socialists  "  of  the  recent  Briand  minis- 
try. Being  neither  Socialists  nor  "Radicals,"  they  are  in  the 
best  position  to  draw  advantages  from  the  "rapprochement" 
of  these  forces,  and  it  was  thus  that  Millerand  came  into  the 
ministry  in  1900,  that  Briand  became  prime  minister  in  1910, 
and  Augagneur  minister  in  1911.  These  are  among  the  most 
formidable  opponents  of  the  Socialist  movement  in  France 
to-day.  It  will  seem  from  this  and  many  other  instances 
that  the  opportunist  policy  which  leads  at  first  to  a  show  of 
success,  later  results  in  a  weakening  of  the  immediate  as 
well  as  the  future  possibilities  of  the  movement. 

The  opportunist  policy  leads  not  only  to  an  abandonment 
of  Socialist  principle,  an  outcome  that  can  never  be  finally 
determined  in  any  case,  but  sometimes  to  an  actual  betrayal 
or  desertion,  visible  to  all  eyes,  as,  for  instance,  when  Ferri 
left  the  movement  in  Italy,  or  Briand  and  Millerand  in  France. 
That  such  desertions  must  inevitably  result  from  the  looseness 
taught  by  "reformist"  tactics  is  evident.  Yet  all  through 
Briand's  early  political  career,  Jaures  was  his  intimate 
associate,  and  even  after  the  former  had  forsaken  the  party, 
the  latter  confessed  that,  like  the  typical  opportunist,  he  had 
still  expected  to  find  in  Briand's  introductory  address  as 
minister  "reasons  for  hoping  for  the  progress  of  social  jus- 
tice." 

The  career  of  Briand  is  typical.  "One  must  understand 
how  to  manage  principles,"  he  had  said  in  1900  at  the  very 
time  he  was  making  the  revolutionary  declarations  I 
shall  quote  (in  favor  of  the  general  strike  and  against  the 
army).  Two  years  later  when  he  made  his  first  speech  in  the 
Chamber,  the  conservative  "Temps"  said  that  Briand  was 


"  REFORMISM '!  133 

"ministrable"  ;  that  is,  that  he  was  good  material  for  some 
future  capitalistic  ministry.  Now  Briand  was  making  in  this 
speech  what  appeared  to  be  a  very  vigorous  attack  against 
the  government  and  capitalism,  but,  like  some  prominent 
Socialists  to-day,  he  had  succeeded  in  doing  it  in  such  a  way 
that  he  allowed  the  more  far-seeing  of  the  capitalistic  enemy 
to  understand  clearly  what  his  underlying  principles  were.  (1) 

At  his  first  opportunity  he  became  connected  with  the 
government,  and  justified  this  step  on  the  ground  of  "his 
moral  attitude,"  since  he  was  the  proposer  of  the  famous 
bill  for  separating  the  Church  and  the  State.  He  was  imme- 
diately excluded  from  the  party,  since  at  the  time  of  Mille- 
rand's  similar  step  a  few  years  before  the  party  had  reached 
the  definite  conclusion  that  Socialists  should  not  be  allowed 
to  participate  in  their  opponent's  administrations. 

When  Briand  became  minister,  and  later  (in  1909)  prime 
minister,  he  did  not  fail  at  once  to  realize  the  worst  fears 
of  the  Socialists,  elevating  military  men  and  naval  officers 
to  the  highest  positions,  and  promoting  that  minister  who  had 
been  most  active  in  suppressing  the  post  office  strike  to  the 
head  of  the  department  of  justice.  So-called  collectivist 
reforms  that  were  introduced  while  he  was  minister,  like 
the  purchase  of  the  Western  Railway,  were  carried  through, 
according  to  conservative  Socialists  like  Jaures,  with  a  loss 
of  700,000,000  francs  to  the  State.  So  that  now  Jaures,  who 
had  done  so  much  to  forward  Millerandism  and  Briandism 
felt  obliged  to  propose  a  resolution  condemning  Briand  and 
Millerand  and  Viviani  as  traitors  who  had  allowed  themselves 
to  be  used  "for  the  purpose  of  'capitalism.' ' 

"' Socialistic'  ministers,"  says  Rappoport,  "have  fallen 
below  the  level  of  progressive  capitalistic  governments.  No 
'Socialistic '  minister  has  done  near  so  much  for  democracy 
as  honorable  but  narrow-minded  democrats  like  Combes. 
'  Socialistic '  ministers  have  before  anything  else  sought  the 
means  of  keeping  themselves  in  office.  In  order  to  make 
people  forget  their  past,  they  are  compelled  to  give  con- 
tinuously new  proofs  of  their  zeal  for  the  government." 

In  France,  where  strong  radical,  democratic,  and  "State 
Socialist"  parties  already  exist,  ready  to  absorb  those  who 
put  reform  before  Socialism,  the  likelihood  that  such  deser- 
tions will  lead  to  any  serious  division  of  the  party  seems  small, 
especially  since  the  Toulouse  Congress,  when  a  platform  was 
adopted  unanimously.  Of  course,  the  leading  factor  in  this 


134  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

platform  was  Jaur&s,  who  stands  as  strongly  for  a  policy  of 
unity  and  conciliation  within  the  party  as  he  has  for  an 
almost  uninterrupted  conciliation  and  cooperation  with  the 
more  or  less  radical  forces  outside  of  it. 

If  Jaur6s  was  able  to  get  the  French  Party  to  adopt  this 
unanimous  program,  it  was  because  he  is  not  the  most  extreme 
of  reformists,  and  because  he  has  hitherto  placed  party  loyalty 
before  everything.  In  the  same  way  Bebel,  voting  on  nearly 
every  occasion  with  the  revolutionists,  is  able  to  hold  the 
German  Party  together  because  he  is  occasionally  on  the  re- 
formist side,  as  in  a  case  to  be  mentioned  below.  JaurSs  looks 
forward,  for  instance,  to  a  whole  series  of  "successful  general 
strikes  intervening  at  regular  intervals,"  and  even  to  the  final 
use  of  a  great  revolutionary  general  strike,  whenever  it  looks 
as  if  the  capitalists  can  be  finally  overthrown  and  the  govern- 
ment taken  into  Socialist  hands  —  though  he  certainly  con- 
siders that  the  day  for  such  a  strike  is  still  many  years  off. 
Nor  does  he  hesitate  to  extend  the  hand  of  Socialist  fellow- 
ship to  the  most  revolutionary  Socialists  and  labor  unionists 
of  his  country,  though  he  says  to  them,  "The  more  revolu- 
tionary you  are,  the  more  you  must  try  to  bring  into  the 
united  movement  not  only  a  minority,  but  the  whole  working 
class."  He  says  he  is  not  against  revolution,  or  the  general 
strike,  but  that  he  is  against  "a  caricature  of  the  general 
strike  and  an  abortive  revolution." 

It  is  only  by  actions,  however,  that  men  or  parties  may 
be  judged,  and  though  JaurSs  has  occasionally  been  found 
with  the  revolutionists,  in  most  cases  he  acts  with  their  rivals 
and  opponents,  the  reformists,  and  in  fact  is  the  most  eminent 
Socialist  reformer  the  world  has  produced.  No  one  will 
question  that  there  are  Socialists  who  are  exclusively  inter- 
ested in  reform  at  the  present  period,  not  because  they  are 
opposed  to  revolution,  but  because  no  greater  movements 
are  taking  place  at  the  present  moment  or  likely  to  take  place 
in  the  immediate  future  —  and  Jaure^s  may  be  one  of  these. 
But  it  is  very  difficult,  even  impossible,  to  distinguish  by  any 
external  signs,  between  such  persons  and  those  for  whom  the 
idea  of  anything  beyond  the  reforms  of  "State  Socialism" 
is  a  mere  ideal,  which  concerns  almost  exclusively  the  next 
or  some  future  generation.  Many  of  those  who  were  form- 
erly JaureVs  most  intimate  associates,  like  the  ministers 
Briand  and  Millerand,  the  recent  ministers  Augagneur  and 
Viviani,  and  many  others,  have  deserted  the  Party  and  are 


"  REFORMISM  "  135 

now  proving  to  be  its  most  dangerous  opponents,  while 
several  other  deputies,  who  are  still  members  like  Brousse, 
recently  Mayor  of  Paris,  are  accused  by  a  large  part  of 
the  organization  of  taking  a  very  similar  position.  Surely 
this  shows  that,  even  if  Jaur&s  himself  could  be  trusted  and 
allowed  to  advocate  principles  and  tactics  so  agreeable  to 
the  rivals  and  enemies  of  Socialism,  there  are  certainly  few 
other  persons  who  can  be  safely  left  in  such  a  compromising 
position. 

In  view  of  these  great  betrayals  on  the  part  of  JaureVs 
associates,  the  mere  fact  that  his  own  position  towards  the 
Party  has  usually  been  correct  in  the  end  —  after  the  majority 
have  shown  him  just  how  far  he  can  go —  and  will  doubtless 
remain  technically  correct,  becomes  of  entirely  secondary 
importance.  He  has  openly  and  repeatedly  encouraged  and 
aided  those  individuals  and  parties  which  later  became  the 
chief  obstacles  in  the  way  of  Socialist  advance,  as  other 
Socialists  had  predicted.  The  result  is,  not  that  the  Socialist 
Party  has  ceased  to  grow,  but  that  a  large  part  of  the  enthu- 
siasm for  Socialism,  largely  created  by  the  party,  has  gone 
to  elect  so-called  "Independent  Socialists"  to  the  Chamber 
and  to  elevate  to  the  control  of  the  government  men  like 
Briand,  who,  it  was  agreed  by  Socialists  and  anti-Socialists 
alike,  was  the  most  formidable  enemy  the  Socialists  have 
had  for  many  years. 

The  program  unanimously  adopted  by  the  French  at 
the  Congress  of  Toulouse  must  be  viewed  in  the  light  of 
this  internal  situation.  "The  Socialist  Party,  the  party 
of  the  working  class  and  of  the  Social  Revolution,"  it  begins, 
"seeks  the  conquest  of  political  power  for  the  emancipation 
of  the  proletariat  [working  class]  by  the  destruction  of  the 
capitalist  regime  and  the  suppression  of  classes."  The 
goal  of  Socialism  could  not  be  more  succinctly  expressed 
than  in  these  words:  "The  destruction  of  the  capitalist 
regime  and  the  suppression  of  classes."  Any  party  that  lives 
up  to  this  preamble  in  letter  and  spirit  can  scarcely  stray 
from  the  Socialist  road. 

"It  is  the  party  which  is  most  essentially,  most  actively 
reformist,"  continues  another  section,  "the  only  one  which 
can  push  its  action  on  to  total  reform ;  the  only  one  which 
can  give  full  effect  to  each  working  class  demand ;  the  only 
one  which  can  make  of  each  reform,  of  each  victory,  the 
starting  point  and  basis  of  more  extended  demands  and  bolder 


136  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

conquests.  ..."  Here  we  have  the  plank  on  which  Jaur£s 
undoubtedly  laid  the  greatest  weight,  and  it  was  supported 
unanimously  partly  because  of  the  necessity  of  party  unity. 
For  this  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  no  reform  will  ever  be 
brought  to  a  point  that  wholly  satisfies  the  working  people 
except  through  a  working  class  government.  But  it  can- 
not be  denied  that  there  are  certain  changes  of  very  great 
importance  to  the  working  people,  like  those  mentioned  in 
previous  chapters,  which  are  at  the  same  time  even  more 
valuable  to  the  capitalists,  and  would  be  carried  out  to  the 
end  even  if  there  were  no  Socialists  in  existence.  If  the 
revolutionary  wing  of  the  French  Party  once  conceded  to 
capitalism  itself  this  possibility  of  bringing  about  certain 
reforms,  they  would  be  in  a  position  effectively  to  oppose 
the  reformist  tactics  of  Jaures  within  the  Party.  By  giving 
full  credit  to  the  semi-democratic  and  semi-capitalistic  reform 
parties  for  certain  measures,  they  would  go  as  far  as  he  does  in 
the  direction  of  conciliation  and  common  sense  in  politics ; 
by  denying  the  possibility  of  the  slightest  cooperation  with 
non-Socialists  on  other  and  still  more  important  questions, 
they  could  constantly  intensify  the  political  conflict,  and 
since  Jaures  is  a  perpetual  compromiser,  put  him  in  the  mi- 
nority in  every  contested  vote  within  the  party.  By  attacking 
the  capitalists  blindly  and  on  all  occasions  they  have  created 
the  necessity  of  a  conciliator  —  the  role  that  Jaurds  so  ably 
and  effectively  fills. 

But,  however  friendly  the  Toulouse  program  may  have 
seemed  to  JaureVs  reform  tactics,  it  is  not  on  that  account  any 
less  explicit  in  its  indorsement  of  revolutionary  methods 
whenever  the  moment  happens  to  be  propitious.  It  states 
that  the  Socialist  Party  "continually  reminds  the  proletariat 
[working  class]  by  its  propaganda  that  they  will  find  salvation 
and  entire  freedom  only  in  a  collectivist  and  communist 
regime";  that  "it  carries  on  this  propaganda  in  all  places 
in  order  to  raise  everywhere  the  spirit  of  demand  and  of 
combat,"  and  that  "the  Socialists  not  only  indorse  the  gen- 
eral strike  for  use  in  economic  struggles,  but  also  for  the  pur- 
pose of  finally  absorbing  capitalism." 

"Like  all  exploited  classes  throughout  history,"  it  concludes, 
"the  proletariat  affirms  its  right  to  take  recourse  at  certain 
moments  to  insurrectionary  violence." 

The  Toulouse  Congress  showed,  not  the  present  position 
of  the  French  Party  or  of  the  International,  but  the  points 


"  REFORMISM ."  137 

on  which  Socialist  revolutionists  and  reformers,  everywhere 
else  at  sword's  point,  can  agree.  The  reformers  do  not  object 
to  promising  the  revolutionaries  that  they  shall  have  their 
own  way  in  the  relatively  rare  crises  when  revolutionary 
means  are  used  or  contemplated.  The  revolutionaries  are 
willing  to  allow  the  reformers  to  claim  all  the  credit  for  all 
reforms  beneficial  to  the  workers  that  happen  to  be  enacted. 
Neither  gives  up  their  first  principle,  whether  it  be  revolution 
or  reform,  but  in  the  matter  of  secondary  importance,  reform 
or  revolution,  each  side  tolerates  in  the  party  an  attitude 
in  diametrical  opposition  to  its  principles  and  the  tactics 
it  requires.  Both  do  this  doubtless  in  the  belief  that  by  this 
opportunism  they  will  some  day  capture  the  whole  party, 
and  that  a  split  may  thus  be  avoided  in  the  meanwhile. 

Since  the  Toulouse  Congress  the  divisions  within  the  French 
Party  have  become  much  more  acute.  Briand's  conduct 
in  the  great  railway  strike  in  1911  is  discussed  below.  Yet 
in  spite  of  this  experience  of  how  much  the  government 
is  ready  to  pay  for  railways  and  how  little  it  is  ready  to  do 
to  their  employees,  Jaures's  followers  at  the  Party  Congresses 
of  1911  and  1912  stood  again  for  the  policy  of  nationalization, 
and  Guesde  was  impelled  to  warn  the  party  that  Briand's 
"State  Socialism"  was  the  gravest  danger  to  the  movement. 

Briand's  positive  achievements  are  also  defended  by 
JaurSs.  The  recent  workingmen's  pension  law,  unlike  that 
of  England,  demands  a  direct  contribution  from  the  employ- 
ees. Nevertheless,  it  contained  some  slight  advantages,  and 
of  the  seventy-five  Socialist  members  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  only  Guesde  voted  against  it.  Even  when  the 
Federation  of  Labor  was  conducting  a  campaign  against  reg- 
istration to  secure  these  "benefits,"  Jaures's  organ,  L'Hu- 
manite  took  the  other  side.  The  working  people,  as  usual, 
followed  their  unions.  Less  than  5  per  cent  registered ;  in 
Paris  only  2.5  per  cent,  and  in  Brest  22  out  of  10,000. 

The  experience  with  Millerand  and  Briand  has  made  it 
impossible  for  Jaure"s  to  tie  the  French  Party  to  "reform- 
ism." But  reformism  has  brought  it  about  that  the 
Party  is  often  split  in  its  votes  in  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  In  the  Party  Congresses,  however,  Jaures  is 
outvoted  where  a  clear  difference  arises,  an  outcome  he 
does  his  best  to  avoid.  The  Congress  of  1911  (at  St.  Quentin) 
reaffirmed  the  international  decision  at  Amsterdam  which 
prevents  the  party  going  in  for  reform  as  a  part  of  a  non- 


138  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Socialist  administration.  It  declared  that  "Socialists  elected 
to  office  are  the  representatives  of  a  party  of  fundamental 
and  absolute  opposition  to  the  whole  of  the  capitalist  class, 
and  to  the  State,  its  tool."  And  Vaillant  said  that  since  the 
Amsterdam  Congress  in  1904  the  question  of  participation 
in  capitalist  ministries  had  ceased  to  exist  in  France. 

It  is  true  that  Jaures  secured  at  this  Congress,  by  a  narrow 
majority,  an  indorsement  of  his  policy  of  accepting  the  gov- 
ernment pension  offer.  But  the  orthodox  followers  of  Guesde 
and  the  revolutionary  disciples  of  Herve*  joined  to  secure 
its  condemnation  first  by  the  Paris  organization,  and  later 
by  the  National  Council  of  the  Party  by  the  decisive  vote 
of  87  to  51.  This  resolution  which  marks  a  great  turning 
point  in  the  French  Party,  is  in  part  as  follows :  — 

"The  National  Council  declares  that  each  time  a  labor 
question  is  to  be  decided,  the  Socialist  Party  should  act  in 
accord  with  the  General  Confederation  of  Labor." 

As  the  Confederation  has  indorsed  Socialism  both  as  an 
end  and  as  a  means,  few,  if  any,  Socialist  parties  would 
object  to  this  resolution.  But  the  Confederation  is  also 
revolutionary,  and  this  policy,  if  adhered  to,  marks  an  end 
to  the  influence  of  the  "reformism"  of  Jaures. 

The  precise  objections  to  the  government's  insurance  pro- 
posal are  also  significant.  The  National  Council  protested 
against  the  following  features :  — 

(1)  The  compulsory  contributions. 

(2)  The  capitalization  (of  the  fund). 

(3)  The  ridiculous  smallness  of  the  pension. 

(4)  The  age  required  to  obtain  the  pension. 

(5)  The  reestablishment  .of  workingmen's  certificates. 
Among  the  working  people  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  first 

feature  was  the  chief  cause  of  unpopularity.  But  Socialists 
know  that,  through  indirect  taxes  or  the  automatic  fall  in 
wages  or  rise  in  prices,  the  same  object  of  charging  the  bill 
to  the  workers  may  be  reached.  The  capitalization  refers 
to  the  investment  and  management  of  the  large  fund  required 
by  a  capitalist  government,  thereby  increasing  its  power. 
The  last  point  has  to  do  with  the  tendency  to  restrict  the 
workers'  liberty  in  return  for  the  benefits  granted  —  a  ten- 
dency more  visible  with  the  pensions  of  the  railway  employees 
which  were  almost  avowedly  granted  to  sweeten  the  bitter 
pill  of  a  law  directed  against  their  organizations. 

The  same  orthodox  and  revolutionary  elements  in  the  Party 


"REFORMISM::  139 

overthrew  the  Moms  Ministry  by  refusing  to  vote  for  it  with 
JaurSs  and  his  followers.  But  this  ministry,  perhaps  the  most 
radical  France  has  had,  was  in  part  a  creation  of  Jaures, 
who  had  hailed  it  with  delight  in  his  organ,  L'Humanite.  The 
fact  that  it  only  lived  for  three  months  and  was  overthrown 
by  Socialists  was  another  crushing  blow  to  Jaure^s.  As  it 
came  simultaneously  with  his  defeat  in  the  National  Council, 
it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  reformists  will  succeed  soon, 
if  ever,  in  regaining  that  majority  in  the  movement  which 
they  held  for  a  brief  moment  at  the  time  of  the  St.  Quentin 
Congress  and  during  the  first  days  of  the  Monis  Ministry. 

It  is  now  in  Belgium  and  Italy  only  that  "reformism" 
is  dominant  and  still  threatens  to  fuse  the  Socialists  with 
other  parties.  In  the  last  election  in  Italy  the  Socialists 
generally  fused  with  the  Republicans  and  Radicals,  while  the 
Belgian  Party  has  decided  to  allow  the  local  political  organiza- 
tions to  do  this  wherever  they  please  in  the  elections  of  1912. 

In  Belgium,  Vandervelde,  who  has  usually  represented 
himself  as  an  advocate  of  compromise  between  the  two  wings 
in  international  congresses,  has  now  come  out  for  a  position 
more  reformistic  than  that  of  Jaure^s  and  only  exceeded  by 
the  British  "Labourites."  He  was  one  of  the  movers  of  the 
Amsterdam  resolution  (see  Chapter  VII),  which  he  now 
declares  merely  repeated  the  previous  one  of  Paris  (1900) 
which,  he  says,  merely  "forbids  an  individual  Socialist  to  take 
a  part  in  a  capitalist  government  without  the  consent  of  the 
Party."  On  the  contrary,  this  Amsterdam  resolution,  as 
Vaillant  says,  forbids  Socialist  Parties  to  allow  their  members 
to  become  members  of  capitalist  ministries  except  under  the 
most  extraordinary  and  critical  circumstances.  (2) 

We  are  not  surprised  after  this  to  hear  Vandervelde  say 
that  the  Belgian  Party  has  not  decided  whether  it  will  take 
part  in  a  future  Liberal  government  or  not,  because,  though  the 
occasion  for  this  might  occur  this  year  (1912),  he  considers 
it  too  far  off  in  the  future  for  present  consideration  —  surely 
a  strange  position  for  a  Party  that  pretends  to  be  interested 
in  a  future  society.  We  are  also  prepared  to  hear  from  him 
that  Socialists  might  be  ready  to  accept  representation  in  such 
a  ministry,  not  in  proportion  to  their  numerical  strength, 
or  even  their  votes,  but  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  seats 
an  unequal  election  law  gives  them  in  Parliament.  Whether, 
when  the  question  actually  presents  itself,  the  Party  will 
follow  Vandervelde  is  more  than  questionable. 


140  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

In  Italy  "reformism"  has  reached  its  furthermost  limit. 
When  last  year  (1911)  Bissolati  was  offered  a  place  in  the 
Giolitti  Ministry  he  hesitated  for  weeks  and  was  openly  urged 
by  a  number  of  other  Socialist  deputies  to  accept.  After 
consultations  with  Giolitti  and  the  king  he  finally  refused, 
giving  as  a  pretext  that,  as  minister,  he  would  be  forced  to  give 
some  outward  obeisance  to  monarchy,  but  really  because  such 
an  action  would  split  the  Socialist  Party  and  perhaps,  also, 
because  he  might  not  be  able  altogether  to  support  Giolitti 
on  the  one  ground  of  the  military  elements  of  his  budget. 
Far  from  condemning  Bissolati,  the  group  of  Socialist  deputies 
passed  a  resolution  that  expressed  satisfaction  with  his  con- 
duct and  even  appointed  him  to  speak  in  their  name  at  the 
opening  of  the  new  Parliament.  All  the  deputies  save  two 
then  voted  confidence  in  the  new  ministry  and  approbation 
of  its  program. 

The  opinion  of  the  revolutionary  majority  of  the  inter- 
national movement  on  this  situation  was  reflected  in  the 
position  of  the  revolutionaries  of  the  two  chief  cities  of  the 
country,  Milan  and  Rome.  At  the  former  city  where  they 
had  a  third  of  the  delegates  to  the  local  Socialist  committee 
they  moved  that  the  Socialist  Party  could  neither  authorize 
its  deputies  to  represent  it  in  a  capitalist  ministry  or  give  that 
ministry  its  support,  "except  under  conditions  determined, 
not  by  Parliamentary  artifices,  but  by  the  needs  and  mature 
political  consciousness  of  the  great  mass  of  workers."  At 
Rome  two  thirds  of  the  Socialist  delegates  voted  a  resolution 
condemning  the  action  of  Bissolati  as  "the  direct  and  logical 
consequence  of  the  thought,  program,  and  practical  action 
of  the  reformist  group,"  and  reproved  both  the  proposal  of 
immediate  participation  in  a  capitalist  government  and  "  the 
theoretical  encouragement  of  such  a  possibility"  as  being 
opposed  to  all  sound  and  consistent  Socialist  activity. 

The  "reformists,"  led  by  Turati,  were  of  the  opinion  merely 
that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe  for  the  action  Bissolati  had 
contemplated.  But  the  grounds  given  in  the  resolution  pro- 
posed by  Turati  on  this  occasion  show  that  it  was  not  on 
principle  that  he  went  even  this  far.  He  declared  that  "in 
the  present  condition  of  the  organization  and  the  present 
state  of  mind  of  the  Party"  a  participation  in  the  govern- 
ment which  was  "not  imposed  by  a  real  popular  movement, 
would  profoundly  weaken  Socialist  action,  aggravating  the 
already  existing  lack  of  harmony  between  purely  parlia- 


"REFORMISM"  141 

mentary  action  and  the  development  of  the  political  con- 
sciousness and  the  capacity  for  victory  on  the  part  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  workers."  (3)  In  other  words,  as  in  France, 
the  working  people,  especially  those  in  the  unions,  will  not 
tolerate  a  further  advance  in  the  reformist  direction,  but 
Turati  and  Bissolati,  like  Jaures  and  Vandervelde  are  striving 
to  compromise,  just  as  far  as  they  will  be  allowed  to  do  so. 
There  is  thus  always  a  possibility  of  splits  and  desertions  in 
these  countries,  but  none  that  the  party  will  abandon  the 
revolutionary  path. 

The  tactics  of  the  Italian  "reformists"  were  immensely 
clarified  at  the  Congress  of  Modena  (October,  1911).  For 
the  question  of  supporting  a  non-Socialist  ministry  and  of 
participating  in  it  was  made  still  more  acute  by  the  govern- 
ment's war  against  Tripoli,  while  the  Bissolati  case  above 
mentioned  was  also  for  the  first  time  before  a  national  Party 
Congress.  Nearly  all  Socialists  had  opposed  the  war,  as  had 
also  many  non-Socialists  —  but  after  war  was  declared,  the 
majority  of  the  Socialist  members  of  Parliament  voted  against 
the  general  twenty-four  hours'  strike  that  was  finally  declared 
as  a  demonstration  against  it.  This  majority  had  finally  de- 
cided to  support  the  strike  only  after  it  was  declared  by  a 
unanimous  vote  of  the  executive  of  the  Federation  of  Labor, 
and  then  its  chief  anxiety  had  been  lest  the  strike  go  too 
far.  The  revolutionary  minority  in  the  parliamentary  group, 
however,  which  had  consisted  of  only  two  at  the  time  of  the 
Bissolati  affair,  was  now  increased  to  half  a  dozen  of  the 
thirty-odd  members,  while  the  revolutionary  opposition  to 
"reformism"  in  the  Modena  Congress,  as  a  result  of  these 
two  issues,  rose  to  more  than  40  per  cent  of  the  delegates. 

At  this  Congress  the  reformists  were  divided  into  three 
groups,  represented  by  Bissolati,  Turati,  and  Modigliani. 
All  agreed  that  it  was  necessary  not  only  to  vote  for  certain 
reforms  —  to  this  the  revolutionists  are  agreed  —  but  also 
at  certain  times  to  vote  for  the  whole  budget  and  to  support 
the  administration.  Modigliani,  however,  declared  (against 
Bissolati)  that  no  Socialist  could  ever  become  a  member  of  a 
capitalist  ministry;  Turati,  that  while  this  principle  held 
true  at  the  present  stage  of  the  movement,  he  would  not 
bind  himself  as  to  the  future;  while  Bissolati  was  unwilling 
to  make  any  pledge  on  this  question.  As  Bissolati  did  not 
propose,  however,  that  the  Socialists  should  take  part  in  the 
present  ministry  at  the  present  moment,  this  question  was  not 


142  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

an  immediate  issue.  What  had  to  be  decided  was  whether, 
in  order  to  hasten  and  facilitate  the  introduction  of  universal 
suffrage  and  other  social  reforms,  the  government  is  to  be 
supported  at  the  present  moment  —  when  it  is  waging  a  war 
of  colonial  conquest  to  which  all  Socialists  are  opposed. 

The  resolution  finally  adopted  by  the  Congress  was  drawn 
up  by  Turati  and  others  who  represented  the  views  of  the 
majority  of  reformists.  While  purely  negative,  it  was  quite 
clear,  and  the  fact  that  it  was  finally  accepted  both  by  Bis- 
solati  and  by  Modigliani  is  highly  significant.  It  concluded 
that  "the  Socialist  group  in  Parliament  ought  not  any 
longer  to  support  the  government  systematically  with  their 
votes."  It  did  not  declare  for  any  systematic  opposition 
to  the  administration,  even  at  the  time  when  it  is  waging  this 
war.  It  did  not  even  forbid  occasional  support,  and  it  left 
full  discretion  in  the  hands  of  the  same  parliamentary  group 
whose  policy  I  have  been  recording. 

As  a  consequence  the  Italian  Party  at  this  juncture  inten- 
tionally tolerated  two  contradictory  policies.  Turati  de- 
clared: "We  are  in  opposition  unless  in  some  exceptional 
case,  in  which  some  situation  of  extreme  gravity  might  present 
itself."  Rigola,  who  was  one  of  the  three  spokesmen  ap- 
pointed for  the  less  conservative  reformists  (with  Turati 
and  Modigliani)  said:  "We  have  been  ministerialists  for 
ten  years,  but  little  or  nothing  has  been  done  for  the  prole- 
tariat. Some  laws  have  been  approved,  but  it  is  doubtful 
if  they  are  due  to  us  rather  than  to  the  exigencies  of  progress 
itself."  In  other  words,  Turati  and  Rigola  thought  there 
could  be  occasions  for  supporting  capitalist  ministries,  though 
the  present  was  not  such  an  occasion ;  while  the  latter  prac- 
tically confessed  that  the  policy  had  always  been  a  failure 
in  Italy.  But  in  the  face  of  all  criticism  Bissolati  announced 
that  he  refused  absolutely  to  pass  over  to  the  opposition  to 
the  ministry  of  Giolitti.  Turati  and  his  followers,  now  in 
control  of  the  Party,  might  tolerate  this  position ;  the  large  and 
growing  revolutionary  minority  would  not.  This  could  only 
mean  that  Socialist  group  in  the  Italian  Parliament,  like  that 
of  France,  and  even  of  Germany,  would  divide  its  votes  on 
many  vital  matters,  or  at  least  that  the  minority  would  ab- 
stain from  voting.  Which  could  only  mean  that  on  many 
questions  of  the  highest  importance  there  was  no  longer  one 
Socialist  Party,  but  two.  (4) 

Turati  himself  wrote  of  the  Modena  Congress :  — 


"  REFORMISM  "  143 

"Only  two  tendencies  were  to  be  seen  in  the  discussion 
and  the  voting ;  two  parties  in  their  bases  and  principles : 
the  Socialist  Party  as  a  party  of  the  working  people,  a  class 
party,  a  party  of  political,  economic,  and  social  reorganiza- 
tion, and  on  the  other  side  a  bourgeois  radical  party  as  a 
completion  of,  and  perhaps  also  as  a  center  of  new  life  force 
for,  the  sleeping  and  half  moribund  bourgeois  democratic 
radicalism."  (5)  That  is,  the  "reformist"  Turati  denied 
that  there  is  anything  Socialistic  about  Bissolati's  "ultra- 
reformist"  faction.  To  this  Bissolati  answered  that  com- 
promise and  the  political  collaboration  of  the  working  people 
with  other  classes,  was  not  to  be  reserved,  as  Turati  had  said, 
for  accidental  and  extraordinary  cases,  but  was  "the  very 
essence  of  the  reformist  method."  (6)  The  revolutionaries, 
of  course,  agree  with  Bissolati  that,  if  the  Socialists  hold  that 
their  prime  function  is  to  work  for  reforms  favored  by  a  large 
part  of  the  capitalists,  compromises  and  the  habit  of  fighting 
with  the  capitalists  instead  of  against  them  are  inevitable. 

Turati  now  began  to  approach  the  revolutionaries,  said 
that  they  had  given  up  their  dogmatism,  immoderation,  and 
justification  of  violence,  and  that  he  only  differed  from  them 
now  on  questions  of  "more  or  less."  The  revolutionaries, 
however,  have  made  no  overtures  to  Turati,  and  Turati's 
overtures  to  the  revolutionaries  have  so  far  been  rejected. 
Turati's  "reformism"  seems  to  be  less  opportunistic  than  it 
was,  but  as  long  as  he  insists,  as  he  does  to-day,  that  it  is 
only  conditions  that  have  changed  and  not  his  reformist 
tactics,  that  the  revolutionaries  are  moving  towards  the 
reformists,  the  relation  of  the  two  factions  is  likely  to  re- 
main as  embittered  as  ever.  Only  if  the  revolutionaries 
continue  to  grow  more  powerful,  until  Turati  is  obliged 
still  further  to  moderate  his  "reformist"  principles  and  to 
abandon  some  of  his  tactics  permanently,  instead  of  saying, 
as  he  does  now,  that  he  lays  them  aside  only  temporarily,  will 
there  be  any  real  unity  in  the  Italian  Socialist  Party. 

Within  a  few  weeks  after  the  Modena  Congress,  Turati 
had  already  initiated  a  movement  in  this  direction  when  he 
persuaded  the  executive  committee  of  the  Party,  after  a 
bitter  conflict,  and  by  a  majority  of  one  (12  to  13),  to  enter 
definitely  into  opposition  to  the  government,  which  in  the 
meanwhile  had  given  a  new  cause  for  offense  by  delaying 
on  a  military  pretext  the  convocation  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  (7) 


144  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Among  the  opportunist  and  ultra  "reformists"  who  were 
still  anxious  to  take  no  definite  action,  were  such  well-known 
men  as  Bissolati,  Podrecca,  Calda,  and  Ciotti.  Bissolati 
deplored  all  agitation  in  criticism  of  the  war  except  a  demand 
for  the  convocation  of  the  Chamber.  Turati  and  others  who 
had  at  last  decided  to  go  over  definitely  to  the  opposition, 
did  so  on  entirely  non-Socialist  and  capitalist  grounds  such 
as  the  expense  of  the  war,  the  unprofitable  nature  of  Tripoli 
as  a  colony,  the  aid  the  war  gave  to  clericals  and  other  reac- 
tionaries (elements  opposed  also  by  progressive  capitalists), 
and  the  interference  it  caused  with  other  reforms  (favored 
also  by  progressive  capitalists).  Turati,  indeed,  was  frank 
enough  to  say  that  he  had  Lloyd  George's  successful  opposi- 
tion to  the  Boer  War  as  a  model,  and  called  the  attention  of 
his  associates  to  the  fact  that  Lloyd  George  became  Minister 
(it  will  be  remembered  that  Turati  is  not  on  the  whole  opposed 
to  Socialists  also  becoming  ministers  —  even  in  a  capitalist 
cabinet).  Even  now  it  was  only  the  revolutionary  Musatti 
who  pointed  out  the  true  Socialist  moral  of  the  situation,  that 
failure  of  the  non-Socialist  democrats  to  stand  by  their  prin- 
ciples and  to  oppose  the  war,  ought  to  lead  the  party  to 
separate  from  them,  not  only  temporarily,  but  permanently, 
and  to  make  impossible  forever  either  the  participation  of  the 
Socialists  in  any  capitalist  administration  or  even  the  sup- 
port of  such  an  administration  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

It  was  only  when  Bissolati  secured  a  majority  of  the  So- 
cialist deputies,  and  this  majority  decided  to  compel  the 
minority  to  accept  Bissolati's  neutral  tactics  as  to  the  war 
and  his  readiness  actively  to  support  the  war  government  at 
every  point  where  that  government  was  in  need  of  support, 
that  Turati  rebelled  and  demanded  that  his  minority,  which 
announced  itself  as  willing  as  a  unit  to  obey  the  decisions  of 
the  Party  Congress,  should  be  recognized  as  its  official  repre- 
sentative in  the  Chamber.  Turati's  position  was  the  same  as 
before,  but  Bissolati's  greater  popularity  among  the  voters, 
including  non-Socialists,  gave  the  latter  control  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary group,  and  forced  the  former  to  a  declaration  of 
war.  The  effect  was  to  throw  Turati  and  his  followers  into  the 
arms  of  the  revolutionaries,  where  they  form  a  minority. 

And  thus  the  situation  becomes  similar  to  that  in  France. 
The  reformist  "leaders,"  Jaures  and  Turati,  do  all  that  is 
possible  to  lead  the  Socialist  Parties  of  the  two  countries  in 
the  opposite  direction  from  that  in  which  these  organizations 


"REFORMISM:;  145 

are  going.  But  though  these  "leaders"  are  turned  in  the 
direction  of  class  conciliation,  they  are  constantly  being 
dragged  backwards  in  the  direction  of  class  war.  Uncon- 
sciously they  are  doing  all  they  can  to  retard  Socialism  — 
short  of  leaving  the  movement.  But  as  long  as  they  consent 
to  go  with  Socialism  when  they  are  unable  to  make  Socialism 
go  with  them,  their  ability  to  retard  the  movement  is  strictly 
limited. 


CHAPTER  III 
"LABORISM"  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 

THE  British  Socialist  situation  is  almost  as  important 
internationally  as  the  German.  The  organized  workingmen 
of  the  world  are  indeed  divided  almost- equally  into  two 
camps.  Most  of  those  of  Australia,  South  Africa,  and 
Canada,  as  well  as  a  large  majority  in  the  United  States, 
favor  a  Labour  Party  of  the  British  type,  and  even  the 
reformist  Socialist  leaders,  Jaures  in  France,  Vandervelde  in 
Belgium,  and  Turati  in  Italy,  often  take  the  British  Party  as 
model.  On  the  other  hand  the  majority  of  the  Socialists 
everywhere  outside  of  Great  Britain,  including  the  larger 
part  of  all  the  working  people  in  every  country  of  continental 
Europe,  look  towards  the  Socialist  Party  of  Germany  as 
their  model,  the  political  principles  and  tactics  of  which  are 
diametrically  opposed  to  those  of  the  British  Labour  Party. 

Far  from  opposing  their  Socialism  to  the  "State  Socialism" 
of  the  government,  the  British  Socialists  in  general  frankly 
admit  that  they  also  are  "State  Socialists,"  and  seem  not  to 
realize  that  the  increased  power  and  industrial  functions  of 
the  State  may  be  used  to  the  advantage  of  the  privileged 
classes  rather  than  to  that  of  the  masses.  The  Independent 
Labour  Party  even  claims  in  its  official  literature  that  the 
"degree  of  civilization  which  a  state  has  reached  may  almost 
be  measured  by  the  proportion  of  the  national  income 
which  is  spent  collectively  instead  of  individually."  (1) 

"Public  ownership  is  Socialism,"  writes  Mr.  J.  R.  Mac- 
Donald,  until  lately  Chairman  of  the  Labour  Party,  (2)  while 
Mr.  Philip  Snowden  says  that  the  first  principle  of  Socialism  is 
that  the  interests  of  the  State  stand  over  those  of  individ- 
uals. (3) 

"I  believe,"  says  Mr.  Keir  Hardie,  "the  collectivist  state 
to  be  a  preliminary  step  to  a  communist  state.  I  believe 
collectivism  or  State  Socialism  is  the  next  stage  of  evolution 
towards  the  communist  state."  "  Every  class  in  a  commu- 
nity," he  said  in  this  same  speech,  "approves  and  accepts 
Socialism  up  to  the  point  at  which  its  class  interests  are  being 

146 


"LABORISM'!   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  147 

served."  It  would  appear,  then,  that  Mr.  Hardie  means  by 
"Socialism"  a  program  of  reforms  a  part  of  which  at  least 
is  to  the  benefit  'of  every  economic  class.  He  contends  only 
that  this  "Socialism"  could  never  be  "fully"  established  until 
the  working  class  intelligently  cooperate  with  other  forces  at 
work  in  bringing  Socialism  into  being.  (4) 

"State  Socialism  with  all  its  drawbacks,  and  these  I 
frankly  admit,"  said  Mr.  Hardie,  "will  prepare  the  way  for 
free  communism."  Mr.  Hardie  considers  it  to  be  the  chief 
business  of  Socialists  in  the  present  day  to  fight  for  "State 
Socialism,"  and  is  fully  conscious  that  this  forces  him  to  the 
necessity  of  defending  the  present-day  State,  as,  for  instance, 
when  he  writes  elsewhere,  "It  is  not  the  State  which  holds  you 
in  bondage,  it  is  the  private  monopoly  of  those  means  of  life 
without  which  you  cannot  live."  Private  property  and  war 
and  not  the  State  Mr.  Hardie  believes  to  have  been  the 
"great  enslavers"  of  past  history  as  of  the  present  day, 
apparently  ignoring  periods  in  which  the  State  has  main- 
tained a  governing  class  which  consisted  not  so  much  of 
property  owners  as  of  State  functionaries ;  to  periods  which 
may  soon  be  repeated,  when  private  property  served  merely  as 
one  instrument  of  an  all-powerful  State. 

Mr.  MacDonald  still  more  closely  restricts  the  word 
"Socialism"  to  the  "State  Socialist"  or  State  capitalist  period 
into  which  we  are  now  entering.  "Socialism,"  says  Mac- 
Donald,  "is  the  next  stage  in  social  growth,"  (5)  and  through- 
out his  writings  and  policy  leaves  no  doubt  that  he  means  the 
very  next  stage,  the  capitalist  collectivism  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking.  The  international  brotherhood  of  the  na- 
tions, which  many  Socialist  thinkers  feel  is  an  indispensable 
condition  for  the  establishment  of  anything  like  democratic 
Socialism,  Mr.  MacDonald  expects  only  in  the  distant  fu- 
ture (5),  while  the  end  of  government  based  on  force,  which  is 
also  considered  essential  by  the  majority  of  Socialist  writers, 
Mr.  MacDonald  postpones  to  "some  far  remote  genera- 
tion."^) In  other  words,  the  position  of  the  recent  Chairman 
of  the  Labour  Party  is  that  what  the  world  has  hitherto  known 
as  Socialism  can  only  be  expected  after  a  vast  period  of  time, 
and  his  opinion  accords  with  that  of  many  bitter  critics  and  op- 
ponents of  the  movement,  who  avoid  a  difficult  controversy  by 
admitting  all  Socialist  arguments  and  merely  asking  for 
time  —  "Socialism,  a  century  or  two  hence  —  but  not  now," 
—  for  all  practical  purposes  an  endless  postponement. 


148  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

Mr.  MacDonald,  who  is  not  only  a  leader  of  the  Labour 
Party,  but  also  one  of  the  chief  organizers  also  of  the  leading 
Socialist  Party  of  that  country,  has  given  us  by  far  the 
fullest  and  most  significant  discussion  of  that  party's 
policy.  He  says  that  an  enlightened  bourgeoisie  will  be 
just  as  likely  to  be  Socialist  as  the  working  classes,  and 
that  therefore  the  class  struggle  is  merely  "a  grandiloquent 
and  aggressive  figure  of  speech."  (7)  Struggle  of  some  kind, 
he  concedes,  is  necessary.  But  the  more  important  form 
of  struggle  in  present-day  society,  he  says,  is  the  trade 
rivalry  between  nations  and  not  the  rivalry  between  social 
classes.  (8)  Here  at  the  outset  is  a  complete  reversal  of  the 
Socialist  attitude.  Socialists  aim  to  put  an  end  to  this 
overshadowing  of  domestic  by  foreign  problems,  principally 
for  the  very  reason  that  it  aids  the  capitalists  to  obscure 
the  class  struggle  —  the  foundation,  the  guiding  principle, 
and  the  sole  reason  for  the  existence  of  the  whole  movement. 

Mr.  MacDonald  claims  further  that  a  class  struggle,  far 
from  uniting  the  working  classes,  can  only  divide  them  the 
more ;  in  other  words,  that  it  works  in  exactly  the  opposite 
direction  from  that  in  which  the  international  organization 
believes  it  works.  The  only  "natural  conflicts"  in  the  pres- 
ent or  future,  within  any  given  society,  according  to  the 
spokesman  of  the  Labour  Party,  represent,  not  the  conflicting 
interests  of  certain  economic  classes,  but  the  "conflicting 
views  and  temperaments"  of  individuals.  (9)  And  the 
chief  divisions  of  temperament  and  opinion,  he  says,  will  be 
between  the  world-old  tendencies  of  action  and  inaction  —  a 
view  which  does  not  differ  one  iota  from  that  of  Mr.  Roose- 
velt. 

Mr.  MacDonald  asserts  that  "it  is  the  whole  of  society 
which  is  developing  towards  Socialism,"  and  adds,  "The 
consistent  exponent  of  the  class  struggle  must,  of  course, 
repudiate  these  doctrines,  but  then  the  class  struggle  is  far 
more  akin  to  Radicalism  than  to  Socialism."  (10)  I  have 
already  pointed  out  how  the  older  Radicalism,  or  political 
democracy,  no  matter  how  individualistic  and  anti-Socialist 
it  may  be,  is  often,  as  Mr.  MacDonald  says,  more  akin  to 
International  Socialism  than  that  kind  of  "State  Socialism" 
or  State  capitalism  Mr.  MacDonald  represents. 

Mr.  MacDonald  typifies  the  majority  of  British  Socialists 
also  in  his  opposition  to  every  modern  form  of  democratic 
advance,  such  as  the  referendum  and  proportional  represen- 


"LABORISM"   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN  149 

tation.  Far  from  being  disturbed,  as  so  many  democratic 
writers  are,  because  minorities  are  suppressed  where  there 
is  no  plan  of  proportional  representation,  he  opposes  the  sec- 
ond ballot,  which  has  been  adopted  in  the  majority  of  the 
countries  of  Continental  Europe — and,  in  the  form  of  direct 
primaries,  also  in  the  United  States.  The  principal  thing  that 
the  electors  are  to  do,  he  says,  is  to  "send  a  man  to  support 
or  oppose  a  government." 

Mr.  MacDonald  finds  that  there  is  quite  a  sufficiency  of 
democracy  when  the  elector  can  decide  between  two  parties; 
and  far  from  considering  the  members  of  Parliament  as  dele- 
gates, he  feels  that  they  fill  the  chief  political  role,  while  the 
people  perform  the  entirely  subordinate  task  either  of  approv- 
ing or  of  disapproving  what  they  have  already  done.  Parlia- 
ment "first  of  all  initiates  ideas,  suggests  aims  and  purposes, 
makes  proposals,  and  educates  the  community  in  these  things 
with  a  view  to  their  becoming  the  ideals  and  aims  of  the 
community  itself."  (11) 

While  Mr.  MacDonald  continues  to  receive  the  confidence 
of  the  trade  union  party,  including  its  Socialistic  wing,  the 
Trade  Union  Congress  votes  down  proportional  representation 
by  a  large  majority,  apparently  because  it  does  not  desire  its 
members  to  be  constituted  into  a  truly  independent  group 
in  Parliament,  does  not  care  to  work  for  any  political  principle 
however  concrete,  but  prefers  to  take  such  share  of  the  actual 
powers  of  government  as  the  Liberal  Party  is  disposed  to 
grant.  Proportional  representation  would  send  for  the  first 
time  a  few  outright  Socialists  to  Parliament,  but  the  election 
returns  'demonstrate  that  the  trade  unionists,  if  more  inde- 
pendent of  the  Liberals,  would  be  fewer  in  number  than  at 
present.  A  part  of  the  Socialist  voters  desire  this  result  and, 
of  course,  believe  it  is  their  right.  The  majority  of  the  trade 
unionists,  however,  who  have  won  a  certain  modicum  of 
authority  in  spite  of  the  undemocratic  constitution  of  their 
party,  do  not  care  to  grant  it — as  possibly  conflicting  with 
the  relatively  conservative  plans  of  "the  aristocracy  of 
labor." 

The  Fabian  Society's  "Report  on  Fabian  Policy"  says 
that  the  referendum,  "in  theory  the  most  democratic  of 
popular  institutions,  is  in  practice  the  most  reactionary."  (12) 
Mr.  MacDonald  refers  to  it  as  a  "  crude  Eighteenth  Century 
idea  of  democracy,"  "a  form  of  Village  Community  govern- 
ment." (13)  At  the  Conference  of  the  Labour  Party  at 


150  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

Leicester  in  1911  he  declared  that  it  was  "anti-democratic" 
and  that  if  the  government  were  to  accept  it,  the  Labour 
Party  "would  have  to  fight  them  tooth  and  nail  at  every  step 
of  that  policy."  As  opposed  to  any  plans  for  a  more  direct 
and  more  popular  government,  he  defends  the  "dignity  and 
authority"  of  Parliament  and  bespeaks  the  " reverence  and 
deference"  that  the  people  ought  to  observe  toward  it. 

Contrast  with  these  views  Mr.  Hobson's  presentation  of 
the  non-Socialist  Radical  doctrine.  "Under  a  professed 
and  real  enthusiasm  for  a  representative  system,"  as  opposed 
to  direct  government,  Mr.  Hobson  finds  that  there  is  con- 
cealed "a  deep-seated  distrust  of  democracy."  He  acknowl- 
edges "that  the  natural  conservatism  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  might  be  sufficient  to  retard  some  reforms."  "But 
this  is  safer  and  better  for  democracy,"  he  says,  "than  the 
alternative  '  faking '  of  progress  by  pushing  legislation  ahead 
of  the  popular  will.  It  is  upon  the  whole  far  more  profitable 
for  reformers  to  be  compelled  to  educate  the  people  to  a  gen- 
uine acceptance  of  their  reform  than  to  'work  it'  by  some 
'pull'  or  'deal'  inside  a  party  machine."  (14) 

Mr.  MacDonald  not  only  puts  a  high  value  on  British 
conservatism  and  a  low  one  on  the  French  Revolution  and  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  but  declares  that  no  change 
whatever  in  the  mere  structure  of  government  can  aid  ideal- 
ists and  reformers  in  any  way,  and  expects  politics  and  parties 
to  be  much  the  same  in  the  future  as  they  are  at  the  present 
moment.  It  is  this  attitude  that  Mr.  Hobson  has  in  mind 
when  he  protests  that  "the  false  pretense  that  democracy 
exists"  in  Great  Britain  has  proved  "the  subtlest  defense  of 
privilege"  —  and  that  this  has  been  the  greatest  cause  of  the 
waste  of  reform  energy  not  only  in  England  but  also  in  France 
and  in  the  United  States.  (15)  Mr.  MacDonald  says  ex- 
plicitly, "The  modern  state  in  most  civilized  countries  is 
democratic,"  and  adds  impatiently  that  "the  remaining 
anomalies  and  imperfections"  cannot  prevent  the  people  from 
obtaining  their  will.  (16)  To  dismiss  in  so  few  words  the 
monarchy,  the  restrictions  of  the  suffrage,  the  unequal  elec- 
tion districts  and  other  shortcomings  of  political  democracy 
in  Great  Britain,  and  to  insist  that  the  government  is  already 
democratic,  is  surely,  as  Mr.  Hobson  says,  "the  subtlest 
defense  of  privilege." 

Mr.  MacDonald  comes  out  flatly  with  the  statement  that 
under  what  he  calls  the  democratic  parliamentary  govern- 


"LABORISM"   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  151 

ment  of  Great  Britain  it  is  practically  impossible  to  maintain 
a  pure  and  simple  Socialist  Party.  He  says  proudly  that 
"nothing  which  the  Labour  Parties  of  Australia  or  Great 
Britain  have  ever  done  or  tried  to  do  under  their  constitu- 
tions departs  in  a  hair's  breadth  from  things  which  the  Liberal 
and  the  Tory  Parties  in  these  countries  do  every  day."  (17) 
"Indeed,  paradoxical  though  it  may  appear,"  he  adds, 
"Socialism  will  be  retarded  by  a  Socialist  Party  which  thinks 
it  can  do  better  than  a  Socialistic  Party."  (18) 

The  Independent  Labour  Party,  indeed,  has  had  a  program  of 
reform  that  is  remarkably  similar  to  that  of  Ministers  Churchill 
and  Lloyd  George,  and  is  indorsed  in  large  part  by  capitalists 
—  as  for  example,  by  Andrew  Carnegie.  The  first  measure 
of  this  program  provided  for  a  general  eight-hour  day.  Mr. 
Carnegie  protests  that  to  put  the  Socialist  label  on  this  is  as 
"frank  burglary  as  was  ever  committed,"  and  the  trade 
union  movement  in  general  would  agree  with  him.  (19) 

The  second  demand  was  for  a  "workable  unemployment 
act."  The  Labour  Party  had  previously  introduced  a  more 
radical  measure  which  very  nearly  received  the  support  of 
a  majority  of  Parliament.  The  third  measure  called  for 
old-age  pensions.  Mr.  Carnegie  remarked  of  this  with  per- 
fect justice :  "Mr.  MacDonald  is  here  a  day  behind  the  fair. 
These  have  been  established  in  Britain  before  this  [Mr. 
Carnegie's  "Problems  of  To-day"]  appears  in  print,  both 
political  parties  being  favorable."  It  is  true  that  the  Labour 
party  demands  a  somewhat  more  advanced  measure  than  that 
to  which  Mr.  Carnegie  alludes,  but  there  is  no  radical  dif- 
ference in  principle,  and  the  Labour  Party  accepted  the 
present  law  as  being  a  considerable  installment  of  what  they 
want. 

Of  the  fourth  point  the  "abolition  of  indirect  taxation 
(and  the  gradual  transference  of  all  public  burdens  to  un- 
earned incomes),"  Mr.  Carnegie  remarks  that  "we  must 
read  the  bracketed  works  in  the  light  of  Mr.  MacDonald's 
philosophy,"  and  "that  this  is  a  consummation  which  cannot 
be  reached  (in  Mr.  MacDonald's  words)  'until  the  organic 
structure  of  society  has  been  completely  altered.'"  We 
have  seen  that  Mr.  Churchill  also  aims  at  the  ultimate  expro- 
priation of  the  whole  future  unearned  increment  of  the  land, 

The  fifth  point  of  the  program  was  similar,  —  a  series  of 
land  acts  (aimed  at  the  utlimate  nationalization  of  the  land). 

The  sixth  point  was  the  nationalization  of   the  railroads 


152  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

and  mines.  Mr.  Carnegie  reminds  us  that  may  conservative 
and  reactionary  governments  own  their  own  railroads.  We 
have  seen  that  Mr.  Churchill  is  in  favor  of  the  same  proposal. 
Mines  also  are  now  national  property  in  several  countries, 
and  there  is  nothing  particularly  radical  or  unacceptable 
to  well-informed  conservatives  in  the  proposal  to  nationalize 
them  elsewhere. 

The  seventh  demand  of  the  program  was  for  "democratic 
political  reforms."  While  the  Independent  Labour  Party 
and  some  of  its  leaders  are  in  favor  of  a  complete  program 
of  democratic  reforms,  I  have  shown  that  others  like  Mr. 
MacDonald  are  directly  opposed  even  to  many  modern 
democratic  measures  already  won  in  other  countries. 

It  would  certainly  seem  that  the  social  reformers,  Mr. 
Carnegie  and  others,  have  as  much  right  as  the  Socialists 
to  claim  such  measures  as  all  those  outlined. 

Many  of  the  other  reforms  proposed  by  the  Independent 
Labour  Party  are  such  as  might  readily  find  acceptance 
among  the  most  conservative.  Indeed  in  urging  the  policy 
of  afforestation,  as  one  means  of  helping  in  the  solution  of 
the  unemployed  problem,  the  party  actually  uses  the  argu- 
ment that  even  Prussia,  Saxony,  and  many  other  highly  capi- 
talistic governments  are  undertaking  it;  though  it  does  not 
mention  the  reactionary  purposes  of  these  governments,  as 
for  example,  in  Hungary  where  it  is  proposed  to  use  the  gov- 
ernment's new  army  of  labor  to  build  up  a  scientific  system 
of  breaking  strikes.  Afforestation  would  add  to  the  general 
wealth  of  the  country  in  the  future,  and  would  be  of  consid- 
erable advantage  to  the  capitalist  classes,  which  makes  the 
largest  uses  of  lumber.  Such  a  policy  could  undoubtedly 
be  devised  in  carrying  out  this  work  as  would  absorb  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  unemployed,  and,  since  unemploy- 
ment is  a  burden  to  the  community  and  troublesome  in  many 
ways,  besides  tending  to  bring  about  a  general  deterioration 
of  the  efficiency  of  the  working  class,  it  is  also  to  the  ulti- 
mate interest  of  the  employers  to  adopt  it. 

A  leading  organ  of  British  Socialism,  the  New  Age, 
went  so  far  as  to  say  of  the  Budget  of  1910  that  it  was  almost 
as  good  "as  we  should  expect  from  a  Socialist  Chancellor 
in  his  first  year  of  office,"  and  said  that  if  Mr.  Philip  Snowden, 
were  Chancellor,  the  Budget  would  have  been  little  different 
from  what  it  was.  (20)  And  it  is  true  that  the  principles  of 
the  Budget  as  interpreted  by  Mr.  Snowden  only  a  few  years 


"LABORISM"  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  153 

ago  in  his  booklet,  "The  Socialist  Budget,"  are  in  nearly 
every  instance  the  same,  though  they  are  to  be  somewhat 
more  widely  applied  in  this  Socialist  scheme.  Of  course 
all  Socialists  would  have  desired  a  smaller  portion  of  the 
Budget  to  go  to  Dreadnoughts  and  a  larger  part  to  education, 
though,  in  view  of  the  popularity  of  the  Navy,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  Labour  Party  Socialist's  would  materially  cut  naval 
expenditure  (see  Chapter  V).  It  must  also  be  noted  that 
the  Socialists  are  wholly  opposed  to  the  increase  of  indirect 
taxation  on  tobacco  and  liquor,  some  four  fifths  of  which 
falls  on  the  shoulders  of  the  workingman.  But  aside  from 
these  points,  there  is  more  similarity  than  contrast  between 
the  two  plans. 

Mr.  Snowden  declared  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the 
Socialists  to  make  the  rich  poorer  and  the  poor  richer,  that 
they  were  going  to  use  the  power  of  taxation  for  that  purpose, 
and  that  the  Budget  marked  the  beginning  of  the  new  era, 
an  opinion  in  strange  contrast  with  Premier  Asquith's  state- 
ment concerning  the  same  Budget,  for  which  he  was  responsible, 
that  one  of  its  chief  purposes  was  "to  increase  the  stability 
and  security  of  property." 

Indeed  the  word  "Socialism ' '  has  been  extended  in  England 
to  include  measures  far  less  radical  than  those  contemplated 
by  the  present  government.  The  Fabian  Society,  the  chief 
advocate  of  "municipal  Socialism"  and  a  professed  and 
recognized  Socialist  organization,  considers  even  the  post 
office  and  factory  legislation  as  being  installments  of 
Socialism,  while  the  Labour  Party  would  restrict  the  term 
to  the  nationalization  or  municipalization  of  industries  — 
but  the  difference  is  not  of  very  great  importance.  The 
latter  class  of  reform  will  undoubtedly  mark  a  revolution 
in  the  policy  of  the  British  government,  but,  as  Kautsky 
says,  this  revolution  may  only  serve  "to  Prussianize  it," 
i.e.  to  introduce  "State  Socialism." 

"The  best  government,"  says  Mr.  Webb,  "is  no  longer 
'that  which  governs  least,'  but  'that  which  can  safely  and 
advantageously  administer  most.'" 

"Wherever  rent  and  interest  are  being  absorbed  under  public 
control  for  public  purposes,  wherever  the  collective  organization  of 
the  community  is  being  employed  in  place  of  individual  efforts, 
wherever  in  the  public  interest,  the  free  use  of  private  land  or 
capital  is  being  further  restrained  —  there  one  more  step  toward 
the  complete  realization  of  the  Socialist  Ideal  is  being  taken." 


154  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

The  fight  of  the  British  Socialists  has  thus  been  directed  from 
the  first  almost  exclusively  against  the  abstraction,  "indi- 
vidualism," and  not  against  the  concrete  thing,  the  capitalist 
class.  John  Morley  had  said  that  the  early  Liberals,  Cobden, 
Bright,  and  others,  were  systematic  and  constructive,  because 
they  "surveyed  society  and  institutions  as  a  whole,"  because 
they  "  connected  their  advocacy  of  political  and  legal  changes 
with  theories  of  human  nature,"  because  they  "considered 
the  great  art  of  government  in  connection  with  the  character 
of  man,  his  proper  education,  his  potential  capacities,"  and 
could  explain  "in  the  large  dialect  of  a  definite  scheme  what 
were  their  aims  and  whither  they  were  going." 

"Is  there,"  Mr.  Morley  had  asked,  "any  approach  to  such 
a  body  of  systematic  political  thought  in  our  own  day  ?  "  Mr. 
Webb  announced  that  the  Fabians  proposed  to  fill  in  this 
void.  It  was  primarily  system  and  order  rather  than  any 
particular  principle  at  which  he  aimed.  The  keynote  of 
his  system  was  to  be  opposition  to  the  individualistic  theory 
of  the  philosophic  Liberals  whom  the  Fabians  hoped  to 
succeed  rather  than  opposition  to  the  principles  of  capital- 
ism, which  lend  themselves  equally  well  either  to  an  in- 
dividualistic or  to  a  collectivistic  application. 

Just  as  Mr.  Webb  is  the  leading  publicist,  so  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw  is  the  leading  writer,  among  the  exponents  of  Fabian 
Socialism.  It  is  now  more  than  twenty  years  since  he  also 
began  idealizing  the  State,  and  he  is  doing  the  same  thing 
to-day.  "Who  is  the  people?  What  is  the  people?"  he 
asked  in  the  Fabian  Essays  in  1889.  "Tom  we  know,  and 
Dick ;  also  Harry ;  but  solely  and  separately  as  individuals  : 
as  a  trinity  they  have  no  existence.  Who  is  their  trustee, 
their  guardian,  their  man  of  business,  their  manager,  their 
secretary,  even  their  stockholder?  The  Socialist  is  stopped 
dead  at  the  threshold  of  practical  action  by  this  difficulty, 
until  he  bethinks  himself  of  the  State  as  the  representative 
and  trustee  of  the  people."  (21)  It  will  be  noticed  that  Mr. 
Shaw  does  not  say  the  State  may  become  the  representative 
and  trustee  of  the  people,  but  that  it  is  their  representative. 
"Hegel,"  he  continues,  "expressly  taught  the  conception  of 
the  perfect  State,  and  his  disciples  saw  that  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  things  made  it  possible  or  even  difficult  to  make  the 
existing  State  if  not  absolutely  perfect,  at  least  trustworthy;" 
and  then,  after  alluding  with  the  greatest  brevity  to  the 
anti-democratic  elements  of  the  British  government,  Mr. 


"LABORISM"  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  155 

Shaw  proceeds  to  develop  at  great  length  the  wonderful  pos- 
sibilities of  the  existing  State  as  the  practically  trustworthy 
trustee,  guardian,  man  of  business,  manager,  secretary,  and 
stockholder  of  the  people.  (22) 

Yet  Mr.  Shaw  says  that  a  Social-Democrat  is  one  "who  de- 
sires through  democracy  to  gather  the  whole  people  into  the 
State,  so  that  the  State  may  be  trusted  with  the  rent  of  the  coun- 
try, and  finally  with  the  land  and  capital  and  the  organization  of 
national  industry."  He  reasons  that  the  transition  to  Social- 
ism through  gradual  extensions  of  democracy  and  State 
action  had  seriously  begun  forty-five  years  before  the  writing 
of  the  Essays,  that  is,  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury (when  scarcely  one  sixth  of  the  adult  male  population 
of  Great  Britain  had  a  vote,  and  w-hen,  through  the  unequal 
election  districts,  the  country  squires  practically  controlled 
the  situation  --  W.  E.  W.).  In  Mr.  Shaw's  reasoning,  as 
in  that  of  many  other  British  Socialists,  a  very  little  democ- 
racy goes  a  long  way.  (23) 

Later  Mr.  Shaw  repudiated  democracy  altogether,  saying 
that  despotism  fails  only  for  want  of  a  capable  benevolent 
despot,  and  that  what  we  want  nowadays  is  not  a  new  or 
modern  form  of  democracy,  but  only  capable  benevolent 
representatives.  He  shelved  his  hopes  for  the  old  ideal,  gov- 
ernment by  the  people,  by  opposing  to  it  a  new  ideal  of  a  very 
active  and  beneficent  government  for  the  people.  In 
"Fabianism  and  the  Empire"  Shaw  and  his  collaborators 
say  frankly:  "The  nation  makes  no  serious  attempt  to 
democratize  its  government,  because  its  masses  are  still  in  so 
deplorable  a  condition  that  democracy,  in  the  popular  sense 
of  government  by  the  masses,  is  clearly  contrary  to  common 
sense."  (24) 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  long  a  member  of  the  Fabian  Society, 
has  well  summed  up  the  character  of  what  he  calls  this 
"opportunist  Socialist  group"  which  has  done  so  much  to 
shape  the  so-called  British  Socialism.  He  says  that  Mr. 
Sidney  Webb  was,  during  the  first  twenty  years  of  his  career 
"the  prevailing  Fabian." 

"His  insistence  upon  continuity  pervaded  the  Society,  was  re- 
echoed and  intensified  by  others,  and  developed  into  something  like 
a  mania  for  achieving  Socialism  without  the  overt  change  of  any  exist- 
ing ruling  body.  His  impetus  carried  this  reaction  against  the  crude 
democratic  idea  to  its  extremest  opposite.  Then  arose  Webbites 
to  caricature  Webb.  From  saying  that  the  unorganized  people 


156  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

cannot  achieve  Socialism,  they  passed  to  the  implication  that 
organization  alone,  without  popular  support,  might  achieve  Social- 
ism. Socialism  was  to  arrive  as  it  were  insidiously. 

"To  some  minds  this  new  proposal  had  the  charm  of  a  school- 
boy's first  dark  lantern.  Socialism  ceased  to  be  an  open  revolution, 
and  become  a  plot.  Functions  were  to  be  shifted,  quietly,  unos- 
tentatiously, from  the  representative  to  the  official  he  appointed; 
a  bureaucracy  was  to  slip  into  power  through  the  mechanical  diffi- 
culties of  an  administration  by  debating  representatives ;  and  since 
these  officials  would,  by  the  nature  of  their  positions,  constitute  a 
scientific  government  as  distinguished  from  haphazard  government, 
they  would  necessarily  run  the  country  on  the  lines  of  a  pretty  dis- 
tinctly undemocratic  Socialism. 

"The  process  went  even  farther  than  secretiveness  in  its  reaction 
from  the  large  rhetorical  forms  of  revolutionary  Socialism.  There 
arose  even  a  repudiation  of  'principles'  of  action,  and  a  type  of 
worker  which  proclaimed  itself  'Opportunist-Socialist.'  This  con- 
ception of  indifference  to  the  forms  of  government,  of  accepting 
whatever  governing  bodies  existed  and  using  them  to  create  officials 
and  'get  something  done,'  was  at  once  immediately  fruitful  in  many 
directions,  and  presently  productive  of  many  very  grave  difficulties 
in  the  path  of  advancing  Socialism."  (Italics  mine.)  (25) 

Besides  the  obvious  absurdities  of  such  tactics,  Mr.  Wells 
points  out  that  they  ignored  entirely  that  reconstruction  of 
legislative  and  local  government  machinery  which  is  very 
often  an  indispensable  preliminary  to  Socialization.  He  is 
speaking  of  such  Socialism  when  he  says :  — 

"Socialism  has  concerned  itself  only  with  the  material  reorganiza- 
tion of  Society  and  its  social  consequences,  with  economic  changes 
and  the  reaction  of  these  changes  on  administrative  work ;  it  has 
either  accepted  existing  intellectual  conditions  and  political  institu- 
tions as  beyond  its  control  or  assumed  that  they  will  obediently 
modify  as  economic  and  administrative  necessity  dictates.  .  .  . 
Achieve  your  expropriation,  said  the  early  Fabians,  get  your  net- 
work of  skilled  experts  over  the  country,  and  your  political  forms, 
your  public  opinion,  your  collective  soul  will  not  trouble  you."  (26) 

Here  Mr.  Wells  shows  that,  while  the  practical  difficulties 
of  making  collectivism  serve  all  the  people  were  ignored  on 
the  one  hand,  the  first  need  of  the  people,  political  education, 
was  neglected  on  the  other.  It  is  true  that  during  the  first 
few  years  of  its  existence  the  Fabian  Society  made  a  great 
and  successful  effort  to  educate  public  opinion  in  a  Socialist 
direction,  but  soon  its  leading  members  deserted  all  such 
larger  work,  to  support  various  administrative  "experiments." 


"LABORISM"  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  157 

Mr.  Wells  referred  to  this  same  type  of  Socialism  in  his 
"Misery  of  Boots"  :  — 

"Let  us  be  clear  about  one  thing:  that  Socialism  means  revolu- 
tion, and  that  it  means  a  change  in  the  everyday  texture  of  life.  It 
may  be  a  very  gradual  change,  but  it  will  be  a  very  complete  one. 
You  cannot  change  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time  not  change 
the  world.  You  will  find  Socialists  about,  or  at  any  rate  men  call- 
ing themselves  Socialists,  who  will  pretend  that  this  is  not  so,  who 
will  assure  you  that  some  odd  little  jobbing  about  municipal  gas  and 
water  is  Socialism,  and  backstairs  intervention  between  Conserv- 
ative and  Liberal  the  way  to  the  millennium.  .  .  .  Socialism  aims 
to  change,  not  only  the  boots  on  people's  feet,  but  the  clothes  they 
wear,  the  houses  they  inhabit,  the  work  they  do,  the  education  they 
get,  their  places,  their  honors,  and  all  their  possessions.  Socialism 
aims  to  make  a  new  world  out  of  the  old.  It  can  only  be  attained 
by  the  intelligent,  outspoken,  courageous  resolve  of  a  great  multi- 
tude of  men  and  women.  You  must  get  absolutely  clear  in  your 
mind  that  Socialism  means  a  complete  change,  a  break  with  history, 
with  much  that  is  picturesque ;  whole  classes  will  vanish.  The  world 
will  be  vastly  different,  with  different  sorts  of  houses,  different  sorts 
of  people.  All  the  different  trades  and  industries  will  be  changed, 
the  medical  profession  will  be  carried  on  under  different  conditions, 
engineering,  science,  the  theatrical  trade,  the  clerical  trade,  schools, 
hotels,  almost  every  trade,  will  have  to  undergo  as  complete  an  in- 
ternal change  as  a  caterpillar  does  when  it  becomes  a  moth  .  .  . 
a  change  as  profound  as  the  abolition  of  private  property  in  slaves 
would  have  been  in  ancient  Rome  or  Athens."  (The  italics  are 
mine.) 

Here  is  the  exact  opposite  view  to  that  which  has  been 
taught  for  many  years  by  the  Fabian  Society  to  no  small 
audience  of  educated  Englishmen  (and  Americans).  For 
there  are  comparatively  few  who  have  neither  read  any  of  the 
Fabian  pamphlets  nor  seen  or  read  any  of  Bernard  Shaw's 
plays  in  which  the  same  standpoint  is  represented. 

Mr.  John  A.  Hobson  classes  the  Socialist  and  non-Socialist 
reformers  of  Great  Britain  together  as  regards  their  oppor- 
tunism. Though  a  Liberal  himself,  he  objects  that  some 
Socialists  are  not  radical  enough,  and  that  "the  milder  and 
more  opportunist  brand  suffer  from  excessive  vagueness."  Of 
the  prevailing  tendency  towards  opportunism,  Mr.  Hobson 
writes :  — 

"This  revolt  against  ideas  is  carried  so  far  that  able  men  have 
come  seriously  to  look  upon  progress  as  a  matter  for  the  manipula- 
tion of  wirepullers,  something  to  be  'jobbed'  in  committee  by 


158  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

sophistical  motions  or  other  clever  trickery.  Great  national  issues 
really  turn,  according  to  this  judgment,  upon  the  arts  of  political 
management,  the  play  of  the  adroit  tactician  and  the  complete 
canvasser.  This  is  the  'work'  that  tells;  elections,  the  sane  ex- 
pression of  the  national  will,  are  won  by  these  and  by  no  other  means. 

"  Nowhere  has  this  mechanical  conception  of  progress  worked  more 
disastrously  than  in  the  movement  towards  Collectivism.  Suppose  that 
the  mechanism  of  reform  were  perfected,  that  each  little  clique  of 
specialists  and  wirepullers  were  placed  at  its  proper  point  in  the 
machinery  of  public  life,  will  this  machinery  grind  out  progress? 
Every  student  of  industrial  history  knows  that  the  application  of 
a  powerful  'motor'  is  of  vastly  greater  importance  than  the  inven- 
tion of  a  special  machine.  Now,  what  provision  is  made  for  generat- 
ing the  motor  power  of  progress  in  Collectivism  ?  Will  it  come  of 
its  own  accord?  Our  mechanical  reformer  apparently  thinks  it 
will.  The  attraction  of  some  present  obvious  gain,  the  suppression 
of  some  scandalous  abuse  of  monopolist  power  by  a  private  com- 
pany, some  needed  enlargement  of  existing  Municipal  or  State 
enterprise  by  lateral  expansion  —  such  are  the  sole  springs  of  action. 
In  this  way  the  Municipalization  of  public  services,  increased  asser- 
tion of  State  control  over  mines,  railways,  and  factories,  the  assump- 
tion under  State  control  of  large  departments  of  transport  trade, 
proceed  without  any  recognition  of  the  guidance  of  general  principles. 
Everywhere  the  pressure  of  special  concrete  interests,  nowhere  the 
conscious  play  of  organized  human  intelligence  !  .  .  . 

"My  object  here  is  to  justify  the  practical  utility  of  'theory' 
and  'principle'  in  the  movement  of  Collectivism  by  showing  that 
reformers  who  distrust  the  guidance  of  Utopia,  or  even  the  applica- 
tion of  economic  first  principles,  are  not  thrown  back  entirely  upon 
that  crude  empiricism  which  insists  that  each  case  is  to  be  judged 
separately  and  exclusively  on  its  own  individual  merits." 

Mr.  Hobson  then  proposes  his  collectivist  program,  which 
he  rightly  considers  to  be  not  Socialist  but  Liberal  merely  — 
and  we  find  it  more  collectivistic,  radical,  and  democratic  than 
that  of  many  so-called  Socialists.  Moreover  it  expresses 
the  views  of  a  large  and  growing  proportion  of  the  present 
Liberal  Party.  Then  he  concludes  as  follows :  — 

"If  practical  workers  for  social  and  industrial  reforms  continue 
to  ignore  principles,  the  inevitable  logic  of  events  will  nevertheless 
drive  them  along  the  path  of  Collectivism  here  indicated.  But  they 
will  have  to  pay  the  price  which  shortsighted  empiricism  always 
pays ;  with  slow,  hesitant,  and  staggering  steps,  with  innumerable 
false  starts  and  blackslidings,  they  will  move  in  the  dark  along  an 
unseen  track  towards  an  unseen  goal.  Social  development  may  be 
conscious  or  unconscious.  It  has  been  mostly  unconscious  in  the 
past,  and  therefore  slow,  wasteful,  and  dangerous.  If  we  desire  it 


"LABORISM'I  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  159 

to  be  swifter,  safer,  and  more  effective  in  the  future,  it  must  be- 
come the  conscious  expression  of  the  trained  and  organized  will  of 
a  people  not  despising  theory  as  unpractical,  but  using  it  to  furnish 
economy  in  action."  (27) 

Practically  all  "State  Socialists"  hold  a  similar  view  to 
that  of  Shaw  and  Webb.  Mr.  Wells  even,  in  his  "First  and 
Last  Things,"  has  a  lengthy  attack  on  what  he  calls  democ- 
racy, when  he  tells  us  that  its  true  name  is  "insubordina- 
tion," and  that  it  is  base  because  "it  dreams  that  its  leaders 
are  its  delegates."  His  view  of  democracy  is  strictly  con- 
sistent with  his  attitude  toward  the  common  man,  whom  he 
regards  as  "a  gregarious  animal,  collectively  rather  like  a 
sheep,  emotional,  hasty,  and  shallow."  (28)  Democracy 
can  only  mean,  Mr.  Wells  concludes,  that  power  will  be  put 
into  the  hands  of  "rich  newspaper  proprietors,  advertising 
producers,  and  the  energetic  wealthy  generally,  as  the  source 
flooding  the  collective  mind  freely  with  the  suggestions  on 
which  it  acts." 

The  New  Age,  representing  the  younger  Fabians,  also 
despairs  of  democracy  and  advocates  compromise,  because 
"the  democratic  party  have  failed  so  far  to  be  indorsed  and  in- 
forced  by  popular  consent."  It  acknowledges  that  the  power 
of  the  Crown  is  "great  and  even  temporarily  overwhelming," 
but  discourages  opposition  to  monarchy  for  the  reason  that 
monarchy  rests  on  the  ignorance  and  weakness  of  the  people 
and  not  on  sheer  physical  coercion.  (29)  The  New  Age 
opposes  those  democratic  proposals,  the  referendum  and  pro- 
portional representation,  considers  that  the  representative 
may  so  thoroughly  embody  the  ideals  and  interests  of  the 
community  as  to  become  "a  spiritual  sum  of  them  all,"  and 
admits  that  this  ideal  of  a  "really  representative  body  of 
men"  might  be  brought  about  under  an  extremely  undemo- 
cratic franchise.  (30)  "Outside  of  a  parish  or  hamlet  the 
Referendum,"  it  says,  "is  impossible.  To  an  Empire  it  is 
fatal."  (31)  And  finally,  this  Socialist  organ  is  perfectly 
ready  to  grant  another  fifty  million  pounds  for  the  navy, 
provided  the  money  is  drawn  from  the  rich,  as  it  finds  that 
"a  good,  thumping  provision  for  an  increased  navy  would 
do  a  great  deal  to  sweeten  a  drastic  budget  for  the  rich,  as 
well  as  strengthen  the  appeal  of  the  party  which  professes 
to  be  advancing  the  cause  of  the  poor."  Imperialism  and 
militarism,  which  in  most  countries  constitute  the  chief  form 
in  which  capitalism  is  being  fought  by  Socialists,  are  actually 


160  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

considered  as  of  secondary  importance,  on  the  ground  that 
through  acquiescing  in  them  it  becomes  possible  to  hasten  a 
few  reforms,  such  as  have  already  been  granted  by  the 
capitalists  of  several  other  countries  without  any  Socialist 
surrender  and  even  without  Socialist  pressure  of  any  kind. 

The  recent  appeal  of  the  New  Age,  for  "a  hundred 
gentlemen  of  ability"  to  save  England,  its  regret  that  no 
truly  intelligent  and  benevolent  "governing  class"  or  "Pla- 
tonic guardians"  are  to  be  found,  and  its  weekly  disparage- 
ment of  democracy  do  not  offer  much  promise  that  it  will 
soon  turn  in  the  radical  direction.  On  the  contrary  it  pre- 
dicts that  the  firm  possession  of  political  power  by  the  wealthy 
classes  is  foredoomed  to  result,  as  in  the  Roman  Empire,  in 
the  creation  of  two  main  classes,  each  of  which  must  become 
corrupt,  "the  one  by  wealth  and  the  other  by  poverty,"  and 
that  finally  the  latter  must  become  incapable  of  corporate 
resistance.  The  familiar  and  scientifically  demonstrated 
fact  of  the  physical  and  moral  degeneration  of  a  considerable 
part  of  the  British  working  people  doubtless  suggests  to  many 
persons  such  pessimistic  conclusions.  "It  is  hopeless  in  our 
view,"  the  New  Age  concludes,  "to  expect  that  the  poor 
and  ignorant,  however  desperate  and  however  numerous, 
will  ever  succeed  in  displacing  their  wealthy  rulers.  No 
slave  revolt  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  ever  succeeded 
by  its  own  power.  In  these  days,  moreover,  the  chances  of 
success  are  even  smaller.  One  machine  gun  is  equal  to  a 
mob."  (32) 

Indeed  the  distrust  of  democracy  is  so  universal  among  Brit- 
ish Socialists  that  Belloc,  Chesterton  and  other  Liberals  accuse 
them  plausibly,  but  unjustly,  of  actually  representing  an  aris- 
tocratic standpoint.  In  an  article  entitled  "  Why  I  Am  Not  A 
Socialist,"  Mr.  Chesterton  expresses  a  belief,  which  he  says 
is  almost  unknown  among  the  Socialists  of  England,  namely, 
a  belief  "in  the  masses  of  the  common  people."  (33)  Mr. 
Belloc,  in  a  debate  against  Bernard  Shaw,  predicted  that 
Socialism,  if  it  comes  in  England,  will  probably  be  simply 
"another  of  the  infinite  and  perpetually  renewed  dodges  of 
the  English  aristocracy." 

It  may  be  well  doubted  if  any  of  the  more  important  of 
the  world's  conservative,  aristocratic,  or  reactionary  forces 
(except  the  doctrinaire  Liberals)  are  opposed  to  Socialism 
as  defined  by  the  Fabian  Society,  i.e.  a  gradual  movement 
in  the  direction  of  collectivism.  Not  only  Czar  and  Kaiser 


"LABORISM"   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  161 

but  even  the  Catholic  Church  may  be  claimed  as  Socialistic 
by  this  standard.  Mr.  Hubert  Bland,  one  of  the  original 
Fabian  Essayists  and  a  very  influential  member  of  the  So- 
ciety, himself  a  Catholic,  actually  asserts  that  the  Church 
never  has  attacked  Fabian  or  true  Socialism.  In  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  Church  is  at  war  with  the  Social  ist  Parties  of  Italy, 
France,  Belgium,  Austria,  Germany,  the  United  States,  and 
every  country  where  both  the  Church  and  the  Socialists  are  a 
political  power,  in  view  of  the  wholesale  and  most  explicit 
denunciations  by  Popes  and  high  ecclesiastics,  and  the  war 
being  waged  against  the  Socialist  Parties  at  every  point, 
Mr.  Eland's  argument  has  some  interest. 

Having  defined  Socialism  as  "the  increase  of  State  rights" 
and  "the  tendency  to  limit  the  proprietary  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  to  widen  the  proprietary  rights  and  activities 
of  the  community"  or  as  the  "control  of  property  by  the 
State  and  municipality,"  Mr.  Bland  has,  of  course,  no  diffi- 
culty in  showing  that  the  Catholic  Church  has  never  op- 
posed it  —  though  many  individualistic  Catholics  have  done 
so. 

"No  fewer  than  two  Popes,"  writes  Mr.  Bland,  "are  said 
to  have  condemned  Socialism  in  authoritative  utterances, 
but  when  I  examine  and  analyze  these  condemnations,  I 
find  it  is  not  Socialism  in  the  sense  I  have  defined  it  here, 
that  is  condemned."  (34)  It  is  indeed  true  that  few  of  the 
most  bitter  and  persistent  enemies  of  the  Socialist  movement 
condemn  "Socialism"  as  defined  by  Mr.  Bland  and  his 
"State  Socialist"  associates. 

This  capitalistic  collectivism  promoted  by  the  Fabian 
Society  has  embodied  itself  practically  in  the  movement 
towards  "municipal  Socialism"  of  which  so  much  was  heard 
some  years  ago,  first  in  Great  Britain  and  later  in  other 
countries.  It  is  now  from  ten  to  twenty  years  since  many 
British  cities,  notably  Glasgow,  began  municipal  experiments 
on  a  large  scale  that  were  branded  by  Socialists  and  non- 
Socialists  alike,  as  municipal  Socialism.  The  first  of  these 
experiments  included  not  only  the  municipalization  of  street 
railways,  electric  light  and  current,  and  so  on,  but  even  the 
provision  of  municipal  slaughter  houses,  bathing  establish- 
ments, and  outdoor  amusements.  The  later  stages  have 
developed  in  a  somewhat  different  direction.  The  chief 
reforms  under  discussion  everywhere  seem  now  to  be  the 
proposals  that  the  municipalities  should  provide  housing 

M 


162  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

accommodations  for  the  poorer  elements  of  the  population, 
and  that  the  health  of  the  children  should  be  looked  after, 
even  to  the  extent  of  providing  free  lunches  in  public  schools. 
If  less  had  been  heard  of  "municipal  Socialism"  in  the  last 
year  or  two,  this  is  merely  because  reforms  on  a  national 
scale  have  for  the  moment  received  the  greater  share  of  public 
attention.  This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  the  national 
reforms  are  more  important  than  the  municipal,  but  only  that 
the  latter  came  first  because  they  were  easier  to  inaugurate, 
though  perhaps  more  difficult  to  carry  to  a  successful  con- 
clusion. 

But  the  first  popularity  of  the  municipal  reform  movement, 
both  in  Great  Britain  and  in  other  countries,  has  received 
at  least  a  temporary  setback  as  the  relations  between  this 
"municipal  Socialism"  and  taxation  were  recognized.  Both 
the  non-taxpaying  working  people  and  the  small  taxpaying 
middle  class  saw  that  the  profits  of  the  new  municipal  enter- 
prises went  to  a  considerable  extent  towards  decreasing  the 
taxation  of  the  well-to-do  instead  of  conferring  benefits  on 
the  majority.  This  might  appear  strange,  since  under  uni- 
versal suffrage  the  non-taxpaying  and  non-landowning 
majority  would  be  expected  to  dominate.  But  in  Great 
Britain,  as  well  as  elsewhere,  central  governments,  in  the 
firm  control  of  taxpayers  and  landowners,  exercise  a  strict 
control  over  the  municipalities,  so  that  this  kind  of  reform 
will  prove- advantageous  chiefly  to  the  landlords,  by  enabling 
them  to  raise  rents  in  proportion  to  the  benefits  gained  by 
tenants ;  and  to  the  taxpaying  minority,  by  making  it  pos- 
sible to  use  the  profits  of  municipal  undertakings  for  the 
purpose  of  reducing  taxes. 

The  tendency  toward  the  extension  of  municipal  enter- 
prises to  be  noted  in  all  the  important  cities  of  the  world, 
is  hastened  by  the  public  belief  that  there  is  no  other  possible 
means  of  preventing  the  exploitation  of  all  classes,  and  con- 
sequent widespread  injury  to  trade,  building,  and  industry 
in  general,  by  public  service  corporations.  But  it  must  be 
observed  that  whatever  municipalization  there  is  will  con- 
tinue to  be  under  the  control  of  the  taxpayers,  landowners, 
and  business  men  and  largely  in  their  interest  as  long  as 
national  governments  remain  in  capitalist  hands. 

The  national  social  reform  administrations  that  are  coming 
into  power  in  so  many  countries  are  encouraging  various 
forms  of  taxpayers'  "municipal  Socialism."  The  ultra- 


"LABORISM"   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  163 

conservative  governments  of  Germany,  Austria,  and  Belgium 
all  permit  the  cities  to  engage  even  in  the  public  feeding  of 
school  children,  while  the  reactionary  national  government 
of  Hungary  has  undertaken  to  provide  for  the  housing  of 
25,000  working  people  at  Budapest.  The  conservative 
London  Daily  Mail  cries  out  that  the  Hungarian  minister, 
Dr.  Wekerle  has  "stolen  a  march  on  the  Socialists,"  but  that 
it  is  the  "right  sort  of  Socialism,"  and  that  "it  has  been  left 
to  the  leader  of  the  privileged  Parliament  [the  Hungarian  Par- 
liament representing  not  the  small  capitalists,  but  the  landed 
nobility  and  gentry]  to  make  the  first  start."  And  there 
is  little  doubt  that  both  the  provision  of  houses  for  the  work- 
ing people  and  the  public  feeding  of"  school  children  rest  on 
precisely  the  same  principles  as  the  social  reforms  now  being 
undertaken  by  national  governments,  such  as  that  of  Great 
Britain,  and  are,  indeed,  the  "right  sort  of  Socialism " from 
the  capitalist  standpoint. 

Taking  the  municipal  reformer  as  a  type  of  the  so-called 
Socialist,  Mr.  Belloc,  a  prominent  Liberal  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment and  an  anti-Socialist,  says  that  "in  the  atmosphere  in 
which  he  works  and  as  regards  the  susceptibilities  which  he 
fears  to  offend,"  that  the  municipal  Socialist  is  entirely  of 
the  capitalist  class.  "You  cannot  make  revolutions  without 
revolutionaries,"  he  continues,  "and  anything  less  revolu- 
tionary than  your  municipal  reformer  never  trod  the  earth. 
The  very  conception  is  alien  to  this  class  of  persons ;  usually 
he  is  desperately  frightened  as  well.  Yet  it  is  quite  certain 
that  so  vast  a  change  as  Socialism  presupposes  cannot  be 
carried  out  without  hitting.  When  one  sees  it  verbally 
advocated  (  and  in  practice  shirked)  by  men  who  have  never 
hit  anything  in  their  lives,  and  who  are  even  afraid  of  a  scene 
with  a  waiter  in  a  restaurant,  one  is  not  inclined  to  believe 
in  the  reality  of  the  creed."  Mr.  Belloc  concludes  finally  that 
all  that  this  kind  of  Socialism  has  done  during  its  moments 
of  greatest  activity  has  tended  merely  to  recognize  the  capital- 
ist more  and  more  and  to  stereotype  the  gulf  between  him 
and  the  other  classes.  (35) 

And  just  as  Mr.  Belloc  has  reproached  the  Socialists  for 
their  conservatism,  so  the  New  Age  and  other  mouth- 
pieces of  Socialism  condemn  the  non-Socialist  radicals  who 
constitute  one  of  the  chief  elements  among  the  supporters 
of  the  present  government  (including  Mr.  Belloc)  as  being 
too  radical.  In  the  literature  of  the  Fabian  Society  also,  the 


164  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

accusation  against  the  Liberals  of  being  too  revolutionary 
is  quite  frequent.  Years  ago  Mr.  Sidney  Webb  accused  them 
of  having  "the  revolutionary  tradition  in  their  bones," 
of  conceiving  society  as  "a  struggle  of  warring  interests," 
and  said  that  they  would  reform  nothing  "unless  it  be  done 
at  the  expense  of  their  enemies."  While  this  latter  accusa- 
tion is  scarcely  true,  either  of  the  British  Liberals  or  of  the 
revolutionary  Socialists  of  the  Continent,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  most  important  reforms  of  the  Socialists,  those  to  which 
greatest  efforts  must  necessarily  be  given,  those  which  alone 
must  be  fought  for,  are  precisely  the  ones  that  must  be 
brought  about  "at  the  expense  of  the  enemy." 

In  no  other  country  has  public  opinion  either  within  the 
Socialist  movement  or  outside  of  it  so  completely  despaired 
of  democracy  and  the  people.  In  none  has  the  spirit  of 
popular  revolt  and  militant  radicalism  been  so  long  dormant. 
Yet,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  British  masses,  en- 
couraged by  those  of  France,  Germany,  and  other  countries, 
will  one  day  recover  that  self-confidence  and  self-assertion 
they  seem  to  have  lost  since  the  times  of  the  "Levellers" 
of  the  Commonwealth,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 
It  may  take  years  before  this  new  revolutionary  movement 
gains  the  momentum  it  already  possesses  in  Germany  and 
France.  But  the  great  strikes  of  1910,  1911,  and  1912  (see 
Part  III,  Chapter  VI)  and  the  changes  in  politics  that  have  ac- 
companied these  strikes  show  that  this  movement  has  already 
begun.  There  is  already  a  strong  division  of  opinion  within 
the  Socialistic  "Independent  Labour  Party,"  and  this  organ- 
ization has  also  taken  issue  on  several  important  matters 
with  the  non-Socialist  Labour  Party,  of  which,  however,  it  is 
still  a  part. 

After  the  unsatisfactory  results  of  the  elections  of  1910 
the  conflict  within  the  Independent  Labour  Party  became 
more  acute  than  ever.  Mr.  Barnes,  then  chairman  of  the 
Labour  Party  itself,  and  Mr.  Keir  Hardie,  the  chief  figure 
in  its  Socialistic  (Independent  Labour  Party)  section,  criti- 
cized severely  the  tactics  that  had  been  followed  by  the  ma- 
jority, led  also  by  two  members  of  the  same  "Socialistic"  section, 
Mr.  MacDonald  and  Mr.  Snowden.  It  is  true  that  the  differ- 
ence was  not  very  fundamental,  but  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  MacDonald  and  Snowden  and  their  avowed  non- 
Socialist  trade-union  allies  were  accused  of  giving  so  much 
to  the  Liberals  as  even  to  weaken  the  position  of  the  Labour 


"LABORISM"  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  165 

Party  itself  to  say  nothing  of  the  still  greater  inconsistency  of 
such  comprises  with  anything  approaching  Socialism.  Mr. 
Barnes  and  Mr.  Hardie  pointed  out  that  the  timid  tactics  pur- 
sued had  endangered  not  only  the  fight  against  the  House  of 
Lords,  but  also  the  effort  to  keep  down  the  naval  budget  and 
the  proposed  solution  of  the  unemployment  question  that  was 
to  have  acknowledged  "the  right  to  work."  That  is,  Mr. 
MacDonald  and  Mr.  Snowden  had  been  so  anxious  to  please 
the  Liberal  government,  that  they  had  risked  even  these 
moderate  reforms,  which  were  favored  by  many  anti-Socialis- 
tic Radicals. 

At  the  "Independents'"  1911  conference  at  Birmingham, 
again,  a  motion  was  proposed  by  the  radical  element,  Hall, 
MacLachlan,  and  others,  which  demanded  that  this  Party 
should  cease  voting  perpetually  for  the  government  merely 
because  the  government  claimed  that  every  question  required 
a  vote  of  confidence,  and  that  they  should  put  their  own  issues 
in  the  foreground,  and  vote  on  all  others  according  to  their 
merits.  This  very  consistent  resolution,  in  complete  accord 
with  the  position  of  Socialist  Parties  the  world  over,  was 
however  voted  down  by  the  "Independents,"  as  it  had  been 
shortly  previously  at  the  conference  of  the  non-Socialist 
Labour  Party  of  which  they  are  a  section.  The  executive 
committee  brought  in  an  amendment  in  the  contrary  sense 
to  that  of  the  radical  resolution,  and  this  amendment  was 
ably  supported  by  MacDonald.  Hardie  and  Barnes,  however, 
persuaded  the  Congress  to  vote  down  both  resolution  and 
amendment  on  the  ground  that  the  "Independents"  in  Par- 
liament ought  to  support  the  Liberal  and  Radical  government, 
except  in  certain  crises  —  as  illustrations  of  which  Barnes  men- 
tioned the  Labourites'  opposition  to  armaments  and  their 
demand  for  the  right  to  work.  Keir  Hardie  also  declared 
that  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the  conduct  of  the  Labour 
Party  in  Parliament;  his  motion  condemning  the  govern- 
ment's action  in  the  Welsh  coal  strike,  for  example,  had 
secured  only  seventeen  of  their  forty  votes.  He  claimed  that 
the  influence  of  the  Liberals  over  the  party  was  due,  not  to 
their  social  reform  program,  but  to  their  passing  of  the  trade- 
union  law  permitting  picketing  after  the  elections  of  1906, 
and  that  he  feared  them  more  than  he  did  the  Conservatives. 
However,  he  thought  that  this  Liberal  influence  was  now  on 
the  decline,  and  said  that  if  the  Liberals  attempted  to 
strengthen  the  House  of  Lords,  as  suggested  in  the  preamble 


166  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

to  their  resolution,  abolishing  its  veto  power,  the  Labour 
Party  would  be  re.ady  to  vote  against  the  government. 

The  Labourites  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  vote  against  this 
preamble,  and  the  government  was  saved  only  because  Bal- 
four  and  the  Conservatives  lent  it  their  support.  It  still 
remains  to  be  seen  if  the  Labourites  will  detach  themselves 
from  the  Liberals  on  a  really  crucial  question,  one  on  which 
they  know  the  Conservatives  will  remain  in  the  opposition  — 
in  other  words,  whether  they  will  do  the  only  thing  that  can 
possibly  show  any  real  independence  or  make  them  a  factor 
of  first  importance  in  the  nation's  politics,  that  is,  overturn 
a  government.  Doubtless  this  day  will  come,  but  it  does 
not  seem  to  be  at  hand. 

This  discussion  was  much  intensified  by  the  decision  of  the 
executive  of  the  Labour  Party  (in  order  to  retain  the  legal 
right  to  use  trade-union  funds  for  political  purposes)  to  relieve 
Labour  members  of  Parliament  of  their  pledge  to  follow  a 
common  policy.  This  decision  again  was  opposed  by  the 
majority  of  the  "Independent"  section  including  Hardie 
and  Barnes,  but  favored  by  a  minority,  led  by  MacDonald. 
With  the  aid  of  the  non-Socialistic  element,  however,  it 
was  carried  by  a  large  majority  at  the  Labour  Party's  con- 
ference in  1911.  Thus  while  one  element  is  growing  more 
radical  another  is  growing  more  conservative  and  the 
breach  between  the  Independents  and  the  other  Labourites  is 
widening. 

Perhaps  the  closest  and  most  active  associate  of  Mr. 
MacDonald  at  nearly  every  point  has  been  Mr.  Philip 
Snowden.  Even  Mr.  Snowden  finally  declared  that  a  recent 
action  of  the  Labour  Party,  when  all  but  half  a  dozen  of  its 
members  voted  with  the  Liberals,  against  what  Mr.  Snowden 
states  to  have  been  the  instructions  of  the  Party  conference, 
"finally  completes  their  identity  with  official  Liberalism." 
Mr.  Snowden  asserted  that  if  the  "  Independents "  would 
stand  this  they  would  stand  anything,  that  the  time  had  come 
to  choose  between  principle  and  party,  and  that  he  was  not 
ready  to  sacrifice  the  former  for  the  latter. 

Shortly  after  this  incident,  which  Mr.  MacDonald  attrib- 
uted to  a  misunderstanding,  came  the  great  railway  strike 
and  its  settlement,  in  which  he  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George  were 
the  leading  factors.  Received  with  enthusiasm  by  the  Lib- 
eral press,  this  settlement  was  bitterly  denounced  by  the 
Labour  Leader,  the  official  organ  of  the  "Independents." 


"LABORISM"   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  167 

Mr.  MacDonald  on  the  other  hand  expressed  in  the  House 
of  Commons  deep  satisfaction  with  the  final  attitude  of  the 
government  and  predicted  that  if  it  was  maintained  no  such 
trouble  need  arise  again  in  a  generation.  No  statement  could 
have  been  more  foreign  to  the  existing  feeling  among  the 
workers,  a  part  of  whom  it  will  be  remembered  failed  to  return 
to  work  for  several  days  after  the  settlement.  The  "Inde- 
pendents" as  the  political  representatives  of  the  more  radical 
of  the  unionists,  naturally  embody  this  discontent,  while 
the  Labour  Party,  being  partly  responsible  for  the  settlement, 
becomes  more  than  ever  the  semi-official  labor  representative 
of  the  government  —  a  divergence  that  can  scarcely  fail  to 
lead  to  an  open  breach. 

It  was  as  a  result  of  all  of  these  critical  situations,  especially 
the  great  railway  strike  and  its  sequels,  that  an  effort  has 
been  made  to  form  a  "British  Socialist  Party"  to  embrace 
all  Socialist  factions,  and  to  free  them  from  dependence  on 
the  Labour  Party.  It  has  succeeded  in  uniting  all,  except 
the  Independent  Labour  Party  and  the  Fabian  Society,  and 
includes  even  a  number  of  local  branches  (though  only  a  small 
minority  of  the  total  number)  of  the  former  organization. 
This  Party  has  issued  an  outright  revolutionary  declaration 
of  principles.  Mr.  Quelch,  editor  of  the  Social  Democratic 
organ,  Justice,  had  proposed  the  following  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples, which  was  far  in  advance  of  the  present  position  of  the 
Independent  Labour  Party,  if  somewhat  ambiguous  in  the 
clause  printed  in  italics :  — 

"The  Socialist  Party  is  the  political  expression  of  the  working- 
class  movement,  acting  in  the  closest  cooperation  with  industrial 
organizations  for  the  socialization  of  the  means  of  production  and 
distribution — that  is  to  say,  the  transformation  of  capitalist 
society  into  a  collective  or  communist  society.  Alike  in  its  object, 
its  ideals,  and  in  the  means  employed,  the  Socialist  party,  though 
striving  for  the  realization  of  immediate  social  reforms  demanded  by 
the  working  class,  is  not  a  reformist  but  a  revolutionary  party,  which 
recognizes  that  social  freedom  and  equality  can  only  be  won  by 
fighting  the  class  war  through  to  the  finish,  and  thus  abolishing  for- 
ever all  class  distinctions."  (36) 

The  phrase  underlined  was  opposed  by  several  of  the  revo- 
lutionary representatives  of  Independent  Labour  Party 
branches  who  were  present  as  delegates  and  others,  and  by 
a  narrow  vote  was  expunged.  The  declaration  as  it  now 
stands  is  as  radical  as  that  of  any  Socialist  Party  in  the  world. 


168  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

The  new  organization  is  already  making  some  inroads  among 
the  membership  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party  and  there 
seems  to  be  a  chance  that  it  will  succeed  before  many  years 
in  its  attempt  to  free  that  organization  and  British  Socialism 
generally  from  their  dependence  on  the  Labour  and  Liberal 
Parties. 

Perhaps  the  contrast  between  "  Labour  "  Party  and  Socialist 
Party  methods  and  aims  comes  out  even  more  clearly  in 
Australasia  than  in  Great  Britain.  A  typical  view  of  the 
New  Zealand  reforms  as  being  steps  towards  Socialism  is 
given  by  Thomas  Walsh,  of  the  Auckland  Voice  of  Labour 
(see  New  York  Call,  September  10,  1911). 

After  giving  a  list  of  things  "  already  accomplished," 
including  a  mention  of  universal  suffrage,  state  operation  of 
the  post  office,  prohibition  of  child  labor,  "free  and  compul- 
sory secular  education  up  to  the  age  of  fourteen  years,"  and 
"State-assisted  public  hospitals"  -besides  the  other  more 
distinctively  capitalist  collectivist  reforms,  such  as  govern- 
ment railways,  mines,  telegraphs,  telephones,  parcel  post, 
life  and  fire  insurance,  banks  and  old-age  pensions  and  muni- 
cipal ownership,  Mr.  Walsh  concludes :  — 

"  These  are  some  of  the  things  already  done :  there  is  a  long  list 
more.  The  revolutionary  seize  and  hold  group  may  label  them 
palliatives,  may  howl  down  as  red  herrings  across  the  scent,  may 
declare  that  they  obscure  main  issues,  but  I  want  to  know  which 
of  the  reforms  they  want  to  see  abolished,  which  of  them  are  useless, 
which  of  them  are  not  necessary  ?  Contrary  to  the  fond  delusion  of 
the  revolutionary  group,  the  defenders  of  the  present  system  don't  and 
won't  hand  out  anything;  everything  obtained  is  wrenched  from  them; 
and  in  the  political  arena,  armed  with  the  ballot  box  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  its  use,  there  is.  no  thing  that  labor  cannot  obtain. 

"Have  the  reforms  secured  blurred  the  main  issue,  have  we  lost 
sight  of  the  goal  ?  The  objective  of  the  New  Zealand  Labour  Party 
to-day  is  the  '  securing  to  all  of  the  full  value  of  their  labour  power 
by  the  gradual  public  ownership  of  all  the  means  of  production, 
distribution,  and  exchange.'  Contrary  to  your  critic's  opinion,  what 
has  already  been  done  has  but  whetted  the  appetite  for  more,  and 
to-day  New  Zealand  labour  is  marshaling  its  forces  for  further  as- 
saults on  the  fortress  of  the  privileged. 

"Every  reform  we  have  secured  has  been  a  step  toward  the  goal; 
every  step  taken  means  one  step  less  to  take.  The  progressive 
legislation  has  not  sidetracked  the  movement  —  it  has  cleared  the 
road  for  further  advancement. 

"  In  New  Zealand  the  enumerated  reforms  are  law  —  made  law 
in  defiance  of  the  wealth-owning  class.  At  the  moment  labour  does  not 


"LABORISM"  IN  GREAT   BRITAIN  169 

possess  the  power  to  administer  the  laws,  but  far  from  that  being  an 
argument  to  abandon  the  law,  it  has  convinced  New  Zealand  labor 
that  the  administrative  control  must  be  got  possession  of,  and 
through  the  ballot  box  New  Zealand  labour  will  march  to  get  that 
control.  Given  control  of  the  national  and  local  government,  the  food 
supplies  can  be  nationalized  and  more  competitive  State-owned  in- 
dustries established.  And  by  labour  administration  of  the  arbitration 
court  the  prices  and  wages  can  be  so  adjusted  that  the  worker  can  buy 
out  of  the  market  all  that  his  labor  put  into  it. 

"  To  the  brothers  in  America  I  say,  Go  on.  Don't  waste  time 
arguing  about  economic  dogma.  Get  a  unified  labor  movement 
and  throw  the  whole  industrial  force  into  the  political  arena.  Any- 
thing less  than  the  whole  force  means  delay.  The  whole  force  means 
victory.  We  have  progressed.  We  have  experimented.  We  have 
proved.  Yours  it  is  but  to  imitate  —  and  improve." 

I  have  underlined  the  most  important  of  Mr.  Walsh's 
conclusions  that  are  contradicted  by  the  evidence  I  have 
given  in  this  chapter  and  elsewhere  in  the  present  volume. 
The  Socialist  view  of  the  last  two  statements  may  be  best 
shown  by  a  quotation  from  Mr.  Charles  Edward  Russell, 
who  is  the  critic  referred  to  by  Mr.  Walsh,  and  has  undertaken 
with  great  success  to  uproot  among  the  Socialists  of  this 
country  the  fanciful  pictures  and  fallacies  concerning  Aus- 
tralasia that  date  in  this  country  from  the  time  of  the  radical 
and  fearless  but  uncritical  and  optimistic  books  of  Henry  D. 
Lloyd  ("A  Country  Without  Strikes,"  etc.).  Mr.  Russell 
shows  that  a  Labor  Party  as  in  Australia  may  gain  control 
of  the  forms  of  government,  without  actually  gaining  the 
sovereignty  over  society  or  industry.  (See  the  International 
Socialist  Review,  September,  1911.)  In  an  article  that  has 
made  a  greater  sensation  in  the  American  movement  than 
any  that  has  yet  appeared  (with  the  exception  of  Debs's 
"Danger  Ahead,"  quoted  in  the  next  chapter),  Mr.  Russell 
writes :  — 

"A  proletarian  movement  can  have  no  part,  however  slight, 
in  the  game  of  politics.  The  moment  it  takes  a  seat  at  that  grimy 
board  is  the  moment  it  dies  within.  After  that,  it  may  for  a  time 
maintain  a  semblance  of  life  and  motion,  but  in  truth  it  is  only  a 
corpse. 

"This  has  been  proved  many  times.  It  is  being  proved  to-day 
in  Great  Britain.  It  has  been  proved  recently  and  most  convinc- 
ingly in  the  experience  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand. 

"In  Australia  the  proletarian  movement  that  began  eighteen 
years  ago  has  achieved  an  absolute  triumph  —  in  politics.  Under 
the  name  of  the  Labor  Party  it  has  won  all  that  any  political  com- 


170  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

bination  can  possibly  win  anywhere.  It  has  played  the  political 
game  to  the  limit  and  taken  all  the  stakes  in  sight.  The  whole 
national  government  is  in  its  hands.  It  has  attained  in  fullest 
measure  to  the  political  success  at  which  it  aimed.  It  not  merely 
influences  the  government;  it  is  the  government. 

"To  make  the  situation  clear  by  an  American  analogy,  let  us 
suppose  the  Socialists  of  America*  to  join  hands  with  the  progressive 
element  in  the  labor  unions  and  with  the  different  groups  of  advanced 
radicals.  Let  us  suppose  a  coalition  party  to  be  formed  called  the 
Labor  Party.  Let  us  suppose  this  to  have  entered  the  State  and 
national  campaigns,  winning  at  each  successive  election  more  seats 
in  Congress,  and  finally,  after  sixteen  years  of  conflict,  electing  its 
candidate  for  President  and  a  clear  majority  of  the  Senate  and  the 
House  of  Representatives.  This  would  be  admitted  to  be  the  sum- 
mit of  such  a  party's  aims  and  to  mean  great  and  notable  success ; 
and  it  would  closely  parallel  the  situation  in  Australia. 

"Exactly  such  a  Labor  Party  has  administered  the  affairs  of 
Australia  since  April,  1910.  Its  triumph  was  the  political  success 
of  a  proletarian  movement  that  was  steered  into  the  political  game. 
What  has  resulted? 

"This  has  resulted,  that  the  Labor  Party  of  Australia  is  now 
exactly  like  any  other  political  party  and  means  no  more  to  the 
working  class  except  its  name.  Constituted  as  the  political  party 
of  that  class,  it  has  been  swept  into  power  by  working-class  votes, 
and  after  almost  a  year  and  a  half  of  control  of  national  affairs,  it  can 
show  nothing  more  accomplished  for  working-class  interests  than 
any  other  party  has  accomplished.  The  working  class  under  the 
Labor  Party  is  in  essentially  the  same  condition  that  it  has  been 
in  under  all  the  other  administrations,  nor  is  there  the  slightest 
prospect  that  its  condition  will  be  changed. 

"In  other  words,  the  whole  machine  runs  on  exactly  as  before, 
the  vast  elaborated  machine  by  which  toilers  are  exploited  and 
parasites  are  fed.  Once  in  power,  the  Labor  Party  proceeded  to 
do  such  things  as  other  parties  had  done  for  the  purpose  of  keeping 
in  power,  and  it  is  these  things  that  maintain  the  machine. 

"  On  the  night  of  the  election,  when: the  returns  began  to  indicate 
the  result,  the  gentleman  that  is  now  Attorney-General  of  the  Com- 
monwealth was  in  the  Labor  Party  headquarters,  jumping  up  and 
down  with  uncontrollable  glee. 

" 'We're  in ! '  he  shouted.     'We're  in  !    We're  in  ! ' 

"That  was  an  excellent  phrase  and  neatly  expressed  the  whole 
situation.  The  Labor  Party  was  in ;  it  had  won  the  offices  and  the 
places  of  power  and  honor ;  it  had  defeated  the  opponents  that  had 
often  defeated  it.  It  was  'in.'  The  next  thing  was  to  keep  in, 
and  this  is  the  object  that  it  has  assiduously  pursued  ever  since. 
'  We  are  in ;  now  let  us  stay  in.  We  have  the  offices ;  let  us  keep 
the  offices.' 

"The  first  thing  it  does  is  to  increase  its  strength  with  the  bour- 


"LABORISM"  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  171 

geoisie  and  the  great  middle  class  always  allied  with  its  enemies. 
To  its  opponents  in  the  campaigns  the  handiest  weapon  and  most 
effective  was  always  the  charge  that  the  Labor  Party  was  not  patri- 
otic, that  it  did  not  love  the  dear  old  flag  of  Great  Britain  with  the 
proper  degree  of  fervor  and  ecstasy ;  that  it  was  wobbly  on  the  sub- 
ject of  war  and  held  strange,  erratic  notions  in  favor  of  universal 
peace  instead  of  yelling  day  and  night  for  British  supremacy 
whether  right  or  wrong  —  which  is  well  known  to  be  the  duty  of  the 
true  and  pure  patriot.  This  argument  was  continually  used  and 
had  great  effect. 

"Naturally,  as  the  Labor  Party  was  now  in  and  determined  to 
stay  in,  the  wise  play  indicated  in  the  game  upon  which  it  had  em- 
barked, was  to  disprove  all  these  damaging  allegations  and  to  show 
that  the  Labor  Party  was  just  as  patriotic  as  any  other  party  could 
possibly  be.  So  its  first  move  was  to  adopt  a  system  of  universal 
military  service,  and  the  next  to  undertake  vast  schemes  of  na- 
tional defense.  The  attention  and  admiration  of  the  country  were 
directed  to  the  fact  that  the  Labor  administration  was  the  first  to 
build  small  arms  factories,  to  revise  the  military  establishment  so 
as  to  secure  the  greatest  efficiency  and  to  prepare  the  nation  for 
deeds  of  valor  on  the  battlefield. 

"At  the  time  this  was  done  there  was  a  crying  need  for  new  labor 
legislation;  the  system  or  lack  of  system  of  arbitrating  labor  dis- 
putes was  badly  in  need  of  repairs;  workingmen  were  being  im- 
prisoned in  some  of  the  States  for  the  crime  of  striking ;  the  power 
of  government  was  often  used  to  oppress  and  overawe  strikers,  even 
when  they  had  been  perfectly  orderly  and  their  cause  was  absolutely 
just.  These  with  many  other  evils  of  the  workingman's  condition 
were  pushed  aside  in  order  to  perfect  the  defense  system  and  get 
the  small  arms  factories  in  good  working  order,  for  such  were  the 
plain  indications  of  the  game  that  the  Labor  Party  had  started  out 
to  play.  'We're  in;  let  us  stay  in.' 

"Meantime  there  remains  this  awkward  fact  about  the  condi- 
tion of  the  working  class.  It  is  no  less  exploited  than  before.  It  is 
as  far,  apparently,  from  the  day  of  justice  under  the  rule  of  the 
Labor  Party  as  it  was  under  the  rule  of  the  Liberal  Party.  What 
are  you  going  to  do  about  that  ?  Why,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done 
about  that  as  yet.  The  country,  you  see,  is  not  ready  for  any 
radical  measures  on  that  subject.  If  we  undertook  to  make  any 
great  changes  in  fundamental  conditions,  we  should  be  defeated  at 
the  next  election  and  then  we  should  not  be  in,  but  should 
be  out.  True,  the  cost  of  living  is  steadily  increasing,  and 
that  means  that  the  state  of  the  working  class  is  inevitably  de- 
clining. True,  under  the  present  system,  power  is  steadily  ac- 
cumulating in  the  hands  of  the  exploiters,  so  that  if  we  are  afraid 
to  offend  them  now,  we  shall  be  still  more  afraid  to  offend  them 
next  year  and  the  next.  But  the  main  thing  is  to  keep  in.  We're 
in ;  let  us  stay  in. 


172  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"Hence,  also,  the  Labor  administration  has  been  very  careful 
not  to  offend  the  great  money  interests  and  powerful  corporations 
that  are  growing  up  in  the  country.  These  influences  are  too  power- 
ful in  elections.  Nothing  has  been  done  that  could  in  the  least 
disturb  the  currents  of  sacred  business.  It  was  recognized  as  not 
good  politics  to  antagonize  business  interests.  Let  the  administra- 
tion keep  along  with  the  solid  business  interests  of  the  country, 
reassuring  them  for  the  sake  of  the  general  prosperity  and  helping 
them  to  go  on  in  the  same,  safe,  sane,  and  conservative  way  as  be- 
fore. It  was  essential  that  business  men  should  feel  that  business  was 
just  as  secure  under  the  Labor  administration  as  under  any  other. 
Nothing  that  can  in  the  least  upset  business,  you  know.  True, 
this  sacred  business  consists  of  schemes  to  exploit  and  rob  the  work- 
ing class,  and  true,  the  longer  it  is  allowed  to  go  upon  its  way  the 
more  powerful  it  becomes  and  the  greater  are  its  exploitations  and 
profits.  But  if  we  do  anything  that  upsets  business  or  tends  to 
disturb  business  confidence,  that  will  be  bad  for  us  at  the  next 
election.  Very  likely  we  shall  not  be  able  to  keep  in.  We  are  in 
now ;  let  us  stay  in,  and  have  the  offices  and  the  power. 

"Therefore,  it  is  with  the  greatest  pride  that  the  Labor  people 
point  out  that  under  the  Labor  administration  the  volume  of  busi- 
ness has  not  decreased,  but  increased ;  the  operations  of  the  banks 
have  shown  no  falling  off ;  they  are  still  engaged  as  profitably  as  of 
yore  in  skinning  the  public ;  the  clearings  are  in  an  eminently  satis- 
factory condition;  profits  have  suffered  no  decline;  all  is  well  in 
our  marts  of  trade.  The  old  machine  goes  on  so  well  you  would 
never  know  there  had  been  any  change  in  the  administration. 
Business  men  have  confidence  in  our  Party.  They  know  that  we 
will  do  the  right  thing  by  them,  and  when  in  the  next  campaign  the 
wicked  orators  of  the  opposition  arise  and  say  that  the  Labor  Party 
is  a  party  of  disturbers  and  revolutionists,  we  can  point  to  these 
facts  and  overwhelm  them.  And  that  will  be  a  good  thing,  because 
otherwise  we  might  not  be  able  to  keep  in.  We're  in ;  let  us  stay 
in. 

"If  the  capitalists  had  designed  the  very  best  way  in  which  to 
perpetuate  their  power,  they  could  not  have  hit  upon  anything 
better  for  themselves  than  this.  It  keeps  the  working  class  occupied, 
it  diverts  their  minds  from  the  real  questions  that  pertain  to  their 
condition ;  it  appeals  to  their  sporting  instincts ;  we  want  to  win, 
we  want  to  cheer  our  own  victory,  we  want  to  stay  in ;  this  is  the 
way  to  these  results.  And  meantime  the  capitalists  rake  off  the 
profits  and  are  happy.  We  are  infinitely  better  off  in  the  United 
States.  The  Labor  Party  of  Australia  has  killed  the  pure  prole- 
tarian movement  there.  At  least  we  have  the  beginnings  of  one 
here.  If  there  had  been  no  Labor  Party,  there  would  now  be  in 
Australia  a  promising  working-class  movement  headed  towards 
industrial  emancipation.  Having  a  Labor  Party,  there  is  no  such 
movement  in  sight.  .  .  . 


"LABORISM'!  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  173 

"You  say:  Surely  it  was  something  gained  in  New  Zealand  to 
secure  limited  hours  of  employment,  to  have  sanitary  factories, 
clean  luncheon  rooms,  old-age  pensions,  workingmen's  compensation. 
Surely  all  these  things  represented  progress  and  an  advance  toward 
the  true  ideal. 

"Yes.  But  every  one  of  these  things  has  been  magnified,  dis- 
torted and  exaggerated  for  the  purpose  and  with  the  result  of  keep- 
ing the  workingman  quiet  about  more  vital  things.  How  say  you 
to  that?  Every  pretended  release  from  his  chains  has  been  in 
fact  a  new  form  of  tether  on  his  limbs.  What  about  that?  I 
should  think  meanly  of  myself  if  I  did  not  rejoice  every  time  a 
workingman's  hours  are  reduced  or  the  place  wherein  he  is 
condemned  to  toil  is  made  more  nearly  tolerable.  But  what 
shall  we  conclude  when  these  things  are  deliberately  employed 
to  distract  his  thoughts  from  fundamental  conditions  and  when 
all  this  state  of  stagnation  is  wrought  by  the  alluring  game  of 
politics  ? 

"I  cannot  help  thinking  that  all  this  has  or  ought  to  have  a  lesson 
for  the  Socialist  movement  in  America.  If  it  be  desired  to  kill 
that  movement,  the  most  effective  way  would  be  to  get  it  entangled 
in  some  form  of  practical  politics.  Then  the  real  and  true  aim  of 
the  movement  can  at  once  be  lost  sight  of  and  this  party  can  go  the 
way  of  every  other  proletarian  party  down  to  the  pit.  I  should 
not  think  that  was  a  very  good  way  to  go. 

"When  we  come  to  reason  of  it  calmly,  what  can  be  gained  by 
electing  any  human  being  to  any  office  beneath  the  skies  ?  To  get 
in  and  keep  in  does  not  seem  any  sort  of  an  object  to  any  one  that 
will  contemplate  the  possibilities  of  the  Cooperative  Common- 
wealth. How  shall  it  profit  the  working  class  to  have  Mr.  Smith 
made  sheriff  or  Mr.  Jones  become  the  coroner?  Something  else 
surely  is  the  goal  of  this  magnificent  inspiration.  In  England  the 
radicals  have  all  gone  mad  on  the  subject  of  a  successful  parliament- 
ary party,  the  winning  of  the  government,  the  filling  of  offices,  and 
the  like.  I  am  told  that  the  leaders  of  the  coalition  movement  have 
already  picked  out  their  prime  minister  against  the  day  when  they 
shall  carry  the  country  and  be  in.  In  the  meantime  they,  too,  must 
play  this  game  carefully,  being  constantly  on  their  guard  against 
doing  anything  that  would  alarm  or  antagonize  the  bourgeoisie  and 
sacred  businesses  and  telling  the  workers  to  wait  until  we  get  in. 
I  do  not  see  that  all  this  relieves  the  situation  in  Whitechapel  or  that 
any  fewer  men  and  women  live  in  misery  because  we  have  a  prospect 
of  getting  in. 

"Furthermore,  to  speak  quite  frankly,  I  do  not  see  where  there 
is  a  particle  of  inspiration  for  Americans  in  any  of  these  English- 
speaking  countries.  So  far  as  I  can  make  out  the  whole  of  mankind 
that  dwells  under  the  British  flag  is  more  or  less  mad  about  political 
success,  Parliament  and  getting  in.  They  say  in  New  Zealand  that 
the  government  can  make  a  conservative  of  any  radical,  if  he 


174  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

threatens  to  become  dangerous,  by  giving  him  some  tin-horn  honor 
or  a  place  in  the  upper  chamber.  In  England  we  have  seen  too 
often  that  the  same  kind  of  influences  can  silence  a  radical  by  invit- 
ing him  to  the  king's  garden  party  or  allowing  him  to  shake  hands 
with  a  lord.  I  do  not  believe  we  have  anything  to  learn  from  these 
countries  except  what  to  avoid." 


CHAPTER  IV 
"REFORMISM"  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

BECAUSE  of  our  greater  European  immigration  and  more 
advanced  economic  development,  the  Socialist  movement  in 
this  country,  as  has  been  remarked  by  many  of  those  who 
have  studied  it,  is  more  closely  affiliated  with  that  of  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe  than  with  that  of  Great  Britain. 

The  American  public  has  been  grievously  misinformed  as  to 
the  development  of  revolutionary  Socialism  in  this  country. 
A  typical  example  is  the  widely  noticed  article  by  Prof. 
Robert  F.  Hoxie,  entitled,  "  The  Rising  Tide  of  Socialism." 

After  analyzing  the  Socialist  vote  into  several  contradic- 
tory elements,  Professor  Hoxie  concludes :  — 

"There  seems  to  be  a  definite  law  of  the  development  of  Socialism 
which  applies  both  to  the  individual  and  to  the  group.  The  law  is 
this :  The  creedalism  and  immoderateness  of  Socialism,  other  things 
being  equal,  vary  inversely  with  its  age  and  responsibility.  The 
average  Socialist  recruit  begins  as  a  theoretical  impossibilist  and 
develops  gradually  into  a  constructive  opportunist.  Add  a  taste 
of  real  responsibility  and  he  is  hard  to  distinguish  from  a  liberal 
reformer."  (1) 

On  the  contrary,  the  "theoretical  impossibilists,"  however 
obstructive,  have  never  been  more  than  a  handful,  and  the 
revolutionists,  in  spite  of  the  very  considerable  and  steady 
influx  of  reformers  into  the  movement,  have  increased  still 
more  rapidly.  That  is,  revolutionary  Socialism  is  growing 
in  this  country  —  as  elsewhere  —  and  a  very  large  and 
increasing  number  of  the  Socialists  are  become  more  and 
more  revolutionary.  From  the  beginning  the  American 
movement  has  been  radical  and  the  "reformists"  have  been 
heavily  outvoted  in  every  Congress  of  the  present  Party  —  in 
1901,  1904,  1908,  and  1910,  while  the  most  prominent  revo- 
lutionist, Eugene  V.  Debs,  has  been  its  nominee  for  President 
at  each  Presidential  election,  since  its  foundation  (1900,  1904, 
and  1908). (a) 

(°)  In  her  "American  Socialism  of  the  Present  Day"  (p.  252)  MissHughan 
denies  that  there  are  many  varieties  of  American  Socialism,  and  says  that  tho 

175 


176  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Aside  from  a  brief  experience  with  the  so-called  municipal 
Socialism  in  Massachusetts  in  1900  and  1902,  the  national 
movement  gave  little  attention  to  the  effort  to  secure  the 
actual  enactment  of  immediate  reforms  until  the  success  of 
the  Milwaukee  Socialists  (in  1910)  in  capturing  the  city  gov- 
ernment and  electing  one  of  its  two  Congressmen.  There 
had  always  been  a  program  of  reforms  indorsed  by  the  Social- 
ists. But  this  program  had  been  misnamed  "Immediate 
Demands,"  as  the  Party  had  concentrated  its  attention  almost 
exclusively  on  its  one  great  demand,  the  overthrow  of  capi- 
talist government. 

In  the  fall  elections  of  1910  it  was  observed  for  the  first 
time  that  certain  Socialist  candidates  in  various  parts  of  the 
country  ran  far  ahead  of  the  rest  of  the  Socialist  ticket,  and 
that  some  of  those  elected  to  legislatures  and  local  offices 
owed  their  election  to  this  fact.  This  appeared  to  indicate 
that  these  candidates  had  bid  for  and  obtained  a  large  share 
of  the  non-Socialist  vote.  A  cry  of  alarm  was  thereupon 
raised  by  many  American  Socialists.  The  statement  issued 
by  Mr.  Eugene  V.  Debs  on  this  occasion,  entitled  "Danger 
Ahead,"  was  undoubtedly  representative  of  the  views  of  the 
majority.  As  Mr.  Debs  has  been,  on  three  occasions,  the 
unanimous  choice  of  the  Socialist  Party  of  the  United  States 
as  its  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  he  remains  unquestion- 
ably the  most  influential  member  of  the  Party.  I,  therefore, 
quote  his  statement  at  length,  as  the  most ,  competent  esti- 
mate obtainable  of  the  present  situation  as  regards  reformism 
in  the  American  Socialist  movement :  — 

"The  danger  I  see  ahead,"  wrote  Mr.  Debs,  "is  that  the  Socialist 
Party  at  this  stage,  and  under  existing  conditions,  is  apt  to  attract 
elements  which  it  cannot  assimilate,  and  that  it  may  be  either 
weighted  down,  or  torn  asunder  with  internal  strife,  or  that  it  may 
become  permeated  and  corrupted  with  the  spirit  of  bourgeois  reform 
to  an  extent  that  will  practically  destroy  its  virility  and  efficiency 
as  a  revolutionary  organization. 

assertion  that  there  are  is  justified  only  the  many  shades  of  tactical  policy 
to  be  found  in  the  Party,  "  founded  usually  on  corresponding  gradations  of 
emphasis  upon  the  idea  of  catastrophe." 

I  do  not  contend  that  there  are  many  varieties  of  Socialism  within  the 
Party  either  here  or  in  other  countries,  but  I  have  pointed  out  that  there 
are  several  and  that  their  differences  are  profound,  if  not  irreconcilable.  It  is 
precisely  because  they  are  founded  on  differences  in  tactics,  i.e.  on  real  instead 
of  theoretical  grounds  that  they  are  of  such  importance,  for  as  long  as  pres- 
ent conditions  continue,  they  are  likely  to  lead  farther  and  farther  apart, 
while  new  conditions  may  only  serve  to  bring  new  differences. 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       177 

"To  my  mind  the  working-class  character  and  the  revolutionary 
integrity  of  the  Socialist  Party  are  of  the  first  importance.  All  the 
votes  of  the  people  would  do  us  no  good  if  our  party  ceased  to  be  a  revo- 
lutionary party  or  became  only  incidentally  so,  while  yielding  more  and 
more  to  the  pressure  to  modify  the  principles  and  program  of  the  Party 
for  the  sake  of  swelling  the  vote  and  hastening  the  day  of  its  expected 
triumph.  .  .  .  The  truth  is  that  we  have  not  a  few  members  who 
regard  vote  getting  as  of  supreme  importance,  no  matter  by  what 
method  the  votes  may  be  secured,  and  this  leads  them  to  hold  out 
inducements  and  make  representations  which  are  not  at  all  compat- 
ible with  the  stern  and  uncompromising  principles  of  a  revolu- 
tionary party.  They  seek  to  make  the  Socialist  propaganda  so 
attractive  —  eliminating  whatever  may  give  offense  to  bourgeois 
sensibilities  —  that  it  serves  as  a  bait  for  votes  rather  than  as  a  means 
of  education,  and  votes  thus  secured  do  not  properly  belong  to  us  and 
do  injustice  to  our  Party  as  well  as  those  who  cast  them.  .  .  .  The 
election  of  legislative  and  administrative  officers,  here  and  there 
where  the  Party  is  still  in  a  crude  state  and  the  members  econom- 
ically unprepared  and  politically  unfit  to  assume  the  responsibil- 
ities thrust  upon  them  as  the  result  of  popular  discontent,  will 
inevitably  bring  trouble  and  set  the  Party  back,  instead  of  advanc- 
ing it,  and  while  this  is  to  be  expected  and  is  to  an  extent  un- 
avoidable, we  should  court  no  more  of  that  kind  of  experience  than 
is  necessary  to  avoid  a  repetition  of  it.  The  Socialist  Party  has 
already  achieved  some  victories  of  this  kind  which  proved  to  be 
defeats,  crushing  and  humiliating,  and  from  which  the  party  has 
not  even  now,  after  many  years,  entirely  recovered  [referring, 
doubtless,  to  Haverhill  and  Brockton.  —  W.  E.  W.]. 

"Voting  for  Socialism  is  not  Socialism  any  more  than  a  menu 
is  a  meal.  .  .  . 

"The  votes  will  come  rapidly  enough  from  now  on  without  seek- 
ing them,  and  we  should  make  it  clear  that  the  Socialist  Party  wants 
the  votes  only  of  those  who  want  Socialism,  and  that,  above  all, 
as  a  revolutionary  party  of  the  working  class,  it  discountenances 
vote  seeking  for  the  sake  of  votes  and  holds  in  contempt  office  seek- 
ing for  the  sake  of  office.  These  belong  entirely  to  capitalist  parties 
with  their  bosses  and  their  boodle  and  have  no  place  in  a  party  whose 
shibboleth  is  emancipation."  (2)  (My  italics.) 

After  Mr.  Debs,  Mr.  Charles  Edward  Russell  is  now,  per- 
haps, the  most  trusted  of  American  Socialists.  His  state- 
ment, made  a  few  months  later  (see  the  International 
Socialist  Review  for  March,  1912),  reaches  identical  conclu- 
sions. As  it  is  made  from  the  entirely  independent  stand- 
point of  the  observations  of  a  practical  journalist  as  to  polit- 
ical methods,  it  strongly  reenforces  and  supplements  Mr. 
Debs's  conclusions,  drawn  chiefly  from  labor  union  experience. 


178  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

As  I  have  already  quoted  Mr.  Russell  at  length  in  the  pre- 
vious chapter,  a  few  paragraphs  will  give  a  sufficient  idea  of 
this  important  declaration :  — 

"  Let  us  suppose  in  this  country,"  writes  Mr.  Russell,  "  a  politi- 
cal party  with  a  program  that  proposes  a  great  and  radical  trans- 
formation of  the  existing  system  of  society,  and  proposes  it  upon 
lofty  grounds  of  the  highest  welfare  of  mankind.  Let  us  suppose 
that  it  is  based  upon  vital  and  enduring  truth,  and  that  the  success 
of  its  ideals  would  mean  the  emancipation  of  the  race. 

"  If  such  a  party  should  go  into  the  dirty  game  of  practical  poli- 
tics, seeking  success  by  compromise  and  bargain,  striving  to  put 
men  into  office,  dealing  for  place  and  recognition,  concerned  about 
the  good  opinion  of  its  enemies,  elated  when  men  spoke  well  of  it, 
depressed  by  evil  report,  tacking  and  shifting,  taking  advantage  of 
a  local  issue  here  and  of  a  temporary  unrest  there,  intent  upon  the 
goal  of  this  office  or  that,  it  would  inevitably  fall  into  the  pit  that 
has  engulfed  all  other  parties.  Nothing  on  earth  could  save  it. 

"  But  suppose  a  party  that  kept  forever  in  full  sight  the  ultimate 
goal,  and  never  once  varied  from  it.  Suppose  that  it  strove  to  increase 
its  vote  for  this  object  and  for  none  other.  .  .  .  Suppose  it  re- 
garded its  vote  as  the  index  of  its  converts,  and  sought  for  such 
votes  and  for  none  others.  Suppose  the  entire  body  was  convinced 
of  the  party's  full  program,  aims,  and  philosophy.  Suppose  that 
all  other  men  knew  that  this  growing  party  was  thus  convinced  and 
thus  determined,  and  that  its  growth  menaced  every  day  more  and 
more  the  existing  structure  of  society,  menaced  it  with  overthrow 
and  a  new  structure.  What  then  ? 

"  Such  a  party  would  be  the  greatest  political  power  that  ever 
existed  in  this  or  any  other  country.  It  would  drive  the  other 
parties  before  it  like  sand  before  a  wind.  They  would  be  compelled 
to  adopt  one  after  another  the  expedients  of  reform  to  head  off  the 
increasing  threat  of  this  one  party's  progress  towards  the  revolu- 
tionary ideal.  But  this  one  party  would  have  no  more  need  to 
waste  its  time  upon  palliative  measures  than  it  would  have  to  soil 
itself  with  the  dirt  of  practical  politics  and  the  bargain  counter. 
The  other  parties  would  do  all  that  and  do  it  well.  The  one  party 
would  be  concerned  with  nothing  but  making  converts  to  its  phi- 
losophy and  preparing  for  the  revolution  that  its  steadfast  course 
would  render  inevitable.  Such  a  party  would  represent  the  highest 
possible  efficiency  in  politics,  the  greatest  force  in  the  State,  and  the 
ultimate  triumph  of  its  full  philosophy  would  be  beyond  question." 

Thus  we  see  that  in  America  reformism  is  regarded  as  a 
dangerous  innovation,  and  that,  before  it  had  finished  its 
second  prosperous  year,  it  had  been  abjured  by  those  who 
have  the  best  claim  to  speak  for  the  American  Party. 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED   STATES       179 

Nevertheless  it  still  persists  and,  indeed,  continues  to  develop 
rapidly  —  if  less  rapidly  than  the  opposite,  or  revolutionary, 
policy  —  and  deserves  the  most  careful  consideration. 

While  "reformism"  only  became  a  practical  issue  in  the 
American  Party  in  1910,  it  had  its  beginnings  much  earlier. 
The  Milwaukee  Socialists  had  set  on  the  "reformist"  course 
even  before  the  formation  of  the  present  national  party  (in 
1900).  Even  at  this  early  time  they  had  developed  what  the 
other  Socialists  had  sought  to  avoid,  a  "leader" — in  the 
person  of  Mr.  Victor  Berger.  At  first  editor  of  the  local 
German  Socialist  organ,  the  Vorwaerts,  then  of  the  Social- 
Democratic  Herald,  acknowledged  leader  at  the  time  of  the 
municipal  victory  in  the  spring  of  1910,  and  now  the  American 
Party's  first  member  of  Congress,  Mr.  Berger  has  not  merely 
been  the  Milwaukee  organization's  chief  spokesman,  organizer, 
and  candidate  throughout  this  period,  but  he  has  come  to  be 
the  chief  spokesman  of  the  present  reformist  wing  of  the 
American  Party.  His  editorials  and  speeches  as  Congress- 
man, and  the  policies  of  the  Milwaukee  municipal  adminis- 
tration, now  so  much  in  the  public  eye,  will  afford  a  fairly 
correct  idea  of  the  main  features  both  of  the  Socialism  that  has 
so  far  prevailed  in  Milwaukee,  and  of  American  "reformism" 
in  general. 

"Socialism  is  an  epoch  of  human  history  which  will  no 
doubt  last  many  hundred  years,  possibly  a  thousand  years," 
wrote  Mr.  Berger,  editorially,  in  1910.  "Certainly  a  move- 
ment whose  aims  are  spread  out  over  a  period  like  that  need 
have  no  terrors  for  the  most  conservative,"  commented 
Senator  La  Follette,  with  perhaps  justifiable  humor. 

If  Socialism  is  to  become  positive,  said  Mr.  Berger  again, 
it  must  "conduct  the  everyday  fight  for  the  practical  revo- 
lution of  every  day."  Like  the  word  "Socialism,"  Mr. 
Berger  retains  the  word  "revolution,"  but  practically  it 
comes  to  mean  much  the  same  as  its  antithesis,  everyday 
reform. 

It  has  been  Mr.  Berger's  declared  purpose  from  the  be- 
ginning to  turn  the  Milwaukee  Party  aside  from  the  tactics 
of  the  International  movement  to  those  of  the  "revisionist" 
minority  that  has  been  so  thoroughly  crushed  at  the  German 
and  International  Congresses.  (See  Chapter  VII.)  "The 
tactics  of  the  American  Socialist  Party,"  he  wrote  editorially 
in  1901,  "if  that  party  is  to  live  and  succeed  —  can  only  be  the 
much  abused  and  much  misunderstood  Bernstein  doctrine." 


180  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"In  America  for  the  first  time  in  history,"  he  added,  "we 
find  an  oppressed  class  with  the  same  fundamental  rights  as 
the  ruling  class  —  the  right  of  universal  suffrage.  .  .  ."  (3) 

It  was  the  impression  of  many  of  the  earlier  German  Social- 
ists in  this  country  that  political  democracy  already  existed  in 
America  and  that  it  was  only  necessary  to  make  use  of  it  to 
establish  a  new  social  order.  The  devices  the  framers  of  our 
Constitution  employed  to  prevent  such  an  outcome,  the  wide- 
spread distribution  of  property,  especially  of  farms,  disfran- 
chisement  in  the  South  and  elsewhere,  etc.,  were  all  considered 
as  small  matters  compared  to  the  difficulties  Socialists  faced 
in  Germany  and  other  countries.  Many  have  come  more 
recently  to  recognize,  with  Mr.  Louis  Boudin,  that  the  move- 
ment "will  have  to  learn  that  in  this  country,  as  in  Germany 
or  other  alien  lands,  the  fight  is  on  not  only  for  the  use  of  its 
power  by  the  working  class,  but  for  the  possession  of  real 
political  power  by  the  masses  of  the  people."  Neither  in 
this  country  nor  in  any  other  does  the  oppressed  class  have 
"the  same  fundamental  rights  as  the  ruling  class."  In 
America  the  working  class  have  not  even  an  approximately 
equal  right  to  the  ballot,  because  of  local  property,  literacy, 
residence,  and  other  qualifications,  as  alluded  to  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  and  it  is  at  least  doubtful  whether  the  workers  are 
in  a  more  favorable  position  here  than  elsewhere  to  gain  final 
and  effective  control  of  the  government  without  physical 
revolution  (as  Mr.  Berger  himself  has  admitted;  see 
Chapter  VI). 

In  explanation  of  what  he  meant  by  the  Bernstein  doctrine, 
Mr.  Berger  wrote  in  1902:  "Others  condemn  every  reform 
which  is  to  precede  the  'Great  Revolution.'  .  .  .  Nothing 
can  be  more  absurd.  .  .  .  Progress  is  not  attained  by  simply 
waiting  for  a  majority  of  people,  for  the  general  reconstruc- 
tion, for  the  promised  hour  of  deliverance.  .  .  .  We  wicked 
'opportunists'  want  action.  .  .  .  We  want  to  reconstruct 
society,  and  we  must  go  to  work  without  delay,  and  work 
ceaselessly  for  the  cooperative  Commonwealth,  the  ideal  of 
the  future.  But  we  want  to  change  conditions  now.  We 
stand  for  scientific  Socialism."  (4) 

It  is  quite  true  that  there  was  a  Socialist  Party  in  this 
country  before  1900,  a  large  part  of  which  ridiculed  every 
reform  that  can  come  before  the  expected  revolution,  but 
these  "  Impossibilists  "  are  now  a  dwindling  handful.  Nearly 
every  Socialist  now  advocates  all  progressive  reforms,  but 


"REFORMISM'!  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       181 

different  views  obtain  as  to  which  of  these  reforms  do,  and 
which  of  them  do  not,  properly  come  within  the  Socialists' 
sphere  of  action. 

Mr.  Berger's  opinion  is  that  the  Socialists  should  take  the 
lead  in  practically  all  immediate  reform  activities,  and  be- 
littles all  other  reformers.  No  sooner  had  Senator  La 
Follette  appeared  on  the  political  horizon  in  1904  than  Mr. 
Berger  classed  him  with  Mr.  Bryan,  as  "visionary."  (5) 
And  after  Senator  La  Follette  had  become  recognized  as 
perhaps  the  most  effective  radical  the  country  has  produced, 
Mr.  Berger  still  persisted  in  referring  to  him  as  "personally 
honest,  but  politically  dishonest,"  and  was  quoted  as  saying, 
with  particular  reference  to  the  Senator  and  his  ideas  of 
reform,  and  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  reactionary  press : 
"An  insurgent  is  60  per  cent  of  old  disgruntled  politician, 
30  per  cent  clear  hypocrisy,  9  per  cent  nothing,  and  1  per  cent 
Socialism.  Put  in  a  bottle  and  shake  well  before  using  and 
you  will  have  a  so-called  'progressive.'"  (6) 

Let  us  see  how  the  Socialist  platform  in  Wisconsin  differs 
from  that  of  the  insurgent  Republicans  and  Democrats.  It 
begins  with  the  statement  that  the  movement  aims  at 
"better  food,  better  houses,  sufficient  sleep,  more  leisure, 
more  education,  and  more  culture."  All  progressive  and 
honest  reform  movements  stand  for  all  these  things  and, 
as  I  have  shown,  promise  gradually  to  get  them.  Under 
capitalism  per  capita  wealth  and  income  are  increased 
rapidly  and  the  capitalists  can  well  afford  to  grant  to  the 
workers  more  and  more  of  all  the  things  mentioned,  not  out 
of  fear  of  Socialism,  but  to  provide  in  the  future  for  that 
steady  increase  of  industrial  efficiency  which  is  destined  to 
be  the  greatest  source  of  future  profits. 

The  platform  goes  on  to  state  that  "the  final  aim  of  the 
Social-Democratic  Party  is  the  emancipation  of  the  producers 
and  the  abolition  of  the  capitalist  system"  and  describes  the 
list  of  reforms  it  proposes  as  "mere  palliatives,  capable  of 
being  carried  out  even  under  present  conditions."  But  it  also 
suggests  that  these  measures  are  in  part,  though  not  all,  Social- 
istic, whereas  a  careful  comparison  with  the  Democratic  and 
Republican  platforms,  especially  the  latter,  shows  that  they 
are  practically  all  adopted  by  the  capitalist  parties  (not  only 
in  Wisconsin,  but  in  States  where  the  Socialists  have  no 
representation  whatever).  If  the  Social-Democrats  of  Wis- 
consin demand  more  government  ownership  and  labor  legis- 


182  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

lation,  the  Republicans  are  somewhat  more  insistent  on 
certain  extensions  of  political  democracy  —  as  in  the  demand 
for  less  partisan  primaries. 

The  New  York  Socialist  platform  makes  very  similar 
demands  to  that  of  Wisconsin,  but  precedes  them  by  the  long 
explanation  (see  Chapter  VI)  of  the  Socialist  view  of  the 
class  struggle,  which  the  Wisconsin  platform  barely  men- 
tions, while  containing  declarations  that  might  be  interpre- 
tated  as  contradicting  it.  The  Wisconsin  idea  is  that  a  Social- 
ist minority  in  the  nation  has  actual  power  to  obtain  reforms 
that  will  advance  us  towards  Socialism  and  that  would  not  other- 
wise be  obtained.  The  New  York  idea  is  that  a  Socialist  mi- 
nority can  have  no  other  reforming  power  than  any  honest  reform 
minority,  unless  Socialism  has  actually  won  or  is  about  to  win 
a  majority. 

The  legislature  of  Wisconsin  has  doubtless  gone  somewhat 
faster  than  those  of  other  "progressive"  States,  on  account 
of  the  presence  of  the  "Social-Democrats."  It  has  passed 
the  latters'  resolutions,  for  example,  calling  for  the  govern- 
ment ownership  of  coal  mines  and  of  such  railroad,  telegraph, 
telephone,  and  express  companies  as  pass  into  the  hands  of 
receivers,  and  also  to  apply  incomes  from  natural  resources 
to  old-age  pensions  as  well  as  other  resolutions  already  men- 
tioned. But  an  inspection  of  the  resolutions  of  the  legisla- 
tures of  other  States  where  there  are  no  Socialist  legislators 
and  only  a  relatively  small  per  cent  of  Socialists  shows  action 
almost  if  not  quite  as  radical.  This  and  the  fact  that  a  very 
radical  tendency  appeared  in  Wisconsin  when  Mr.  La  Follette 
was  governor  and  before  Socialism  had  any  apparent  power  in 
that  State,  suggests  that  the  influence  of  the  latter  has  been 
entirely  secondary. 

The  Social-Democratic  Herald  complains  significantly,  at 
a  later  date,  of  "the  cowardly  and  hypocritical  Socialistic 
platforms  of  the  two  older  parties,"  while  Mr.  Berger  was 
lately  predicting  that  Senator  La  Follette  would  be  "told  to 
get  out"  of  the  Republican  Party.  The  reformer  who  was  so 
recently  "retrogressive"  had  now  become  a  rival  in  reform. 
Mr.  Berger,  however,  claims  that  he  does  not  object  when 
reformers  "steal  the  Socialist  thunder."  If  both  are  striv- 
ing after  the  "immediately  attainable,"  how  indeed  could 
there  be  any  lasting  conflict,  or  serious  difference  of  opinion  ? 
Or  if  there  is  to  be  any  difference  at  all  between  Socialists 
and  "Insurgents,"  is  it  not  clear  that  the  Socialists  must 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       183 

reject,  absolutely,  Berger's  principles,  and  follow  Bebel's 
advice  (quoted  below),  i.e.  concentrate  their  attention  exclu- 
sively on  "thunder"  which  the  enemy  will  not  and  cannot  steal  ? 

But  perhaps  an  even  more  striking  indication  of  the  nature 
of  Milwaukee  Socialism  is  shown  by  the  very  general  wel- 
come it  has  received  among  capitalist  organs  of  all  parties, 
from  the  Outlook,  Collier's  Weekly,  the  Saturday  Evening  Post, 
and  the  American  Magazine,  to  the  New  York  Journal,  the 
New  York  World,  the  Chicago  Tribune,  the  Milwaukee  Journal, 
and  other  capitalist  papers  all  over  the  country.  The  New 
York  Journal  stated  editorially  after  the  municipal  election  of 
1910,  that  won  Milwaukee  for  the  Socialists  of  the  Berger 
School ,  that  the  men  of  Milwaukee  who  have  accumulated  * 
millions  show  no  signs  of  fear  and  that  "before  the  election 
many  of  the  biggest  Milwaukee  business  men  (including 
at  least  two  of  the  brewers)  had  expressed  themselves  pri- 
vately in  admiration  of  Mr.  Berger  and  his  character  and  his 
purposes."  (My  italics.)  (7) 

La  Follette's  Weekly  on  this  occasion  quoted  from  an  edi- 
torial of  Mr.  Berger  in  which  he  had  written  :  "We  must  show 
the  people  of  Milwaukee  that  the  philosophy  of  international 
Socialism  can  be  applied  and  will  be  applied  to  the  local  situa- 
tion, and  that  it  can  be  applied  with  advantage  to  any  Ameri- 
can city  of  the  present  day.  ...  It  is  our  duty  to  give  this 
city  the  best  kind  of  an  administration  that  a  modern  city 
can  get  under  the  present  system,  and  the  present  laws."  (My 
italics.)  La  Follette's  repeats  the  phrase  in  italics  and  adds 
that  this  policy  contains  "nothing  to  arouse  fear  on  the  part 
of  the  business  interests  that  is  tangible  enough  to  be  felt  or 
genuine  enough  to  be  contagious,"  that  the  people  want 
"new  blood  in  the  city  offices,"  "had  confidence  in  the 
Socialist  candidates,"  and  "are  not  afraid  of  a  name." 

I  have  mentioned  Liebknecht's  remark  that  the  enemy's 
praise  is  a  sign  of  failure.  Debs  in  this  country  is  reported 
as  saying,  "When  the  political' or  economic  leaders  of  the 
wage  worker  are  recommended  for  their  good  sense  and  wise 
action  by  capitalists,  it  is  proof  that  they  have  become  mis- 
leaders  and  cannot  be  trusted." 

It  may  be  imagined  that  the  revolutionary  Socialists  have  ' 
never  approved  these  tactics  of  Mr.  Berger's  and  do  so  less  to- 
day than  ever.     His  anti-immigration  proposals  were  defeated 
by  a  large  majority  at  the  last  Socialist  congress  and  some  of 
the  best-known  Socialists  and  organs  of  Socialist  opinion  have 


184  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

definitely  repudiated  his  policy.  Mr.  J.  G.  Phelps  Stokes, 
formerly  a  member  of  the  National  Executive  Committee, 
declared  publicly,  after  the  Milwaukee  victory  of  1910,  that 
the  Milwaukee  Socialists  "had  compromised  with  capitalism" 
by  their  campaign  utterances,  and  in  certain  instances  had 
acted  as  "mere  reformers,  not  as  Socialists  at  all."  It  is  not 
surprising  that  the  anti-Socialist  reform  press  thereupon  took 
up  the  cudgels  in  behalf  of  Mr.  Berger,  including  the  New  York 
World,  the  Chicago  Tribune,  and  Milwaukee  Journal.  The 
last-named  paper  very  curiously  claimed  that,  wherever 
Socialists  "have  been  intrusted  with  the  powers  of  the  gov- 
ernment, "  they  have  taken  a  similar  course  to  that  of  Mr. 
Berger.  This  is  that  very  obvious  truth  of  which  I  have 
spoken  in  preceding  chapters,  namely,  that  when  Socialists 
have  allowed  themselves  to  be  saddled  with  the  responsi- 
bilities of  some  department  or  local  branch  of  government, 
without  having  the  sovereign  power  needed  to  apply  Socialist 
principles,  they  have  frequently  found  themselves  in  an  un- 
tenable situation.  The  Socialists  have  been  the  first  to 
recognize  this,  and  for  this  reason  oppose  any  entrance  of 
Socialists  into  capitalist  governments,  i.e.  their  acceptance 
of  minority  positions  in  national  cabinets  or  councils  of  State. 
(See  Chapters  II,  VI,  and  VII.) 

Expressing  the  belief  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
those  who  are  watching  the  progress  of  affairs  in  Milwaukee, 
the  Journal  of  that  city  stated,  "What  they  [the  Socialists] 
are  doing  [in  Milwaukee]  is  not  essentially  Socialistic,  though 
some  of  the  reforms  they  propose  are  Socialistic  in  tendency." 
This  need  not  be  taken  to  mean  that  the  Milwaukee  reforms 
are  supposed  to  tend  to  Socialism  as  Socialists  in  general 
understand  it,  but  rather  to  that  capitalistic  collectivism  to 
which  Mr.  Taft  refers  when  he  says  that  in  the  present  regu- 
lation of  the  railroads  "we  have  gone  a  long  way  in  the  direc- 
tion of  State  Socialism." 

Mr.  Stokes's  comment  upon  many  widely  published  de- 
fenses of  the  Milwaukee  Socialists  by  anti-Socialists  was 
published  in  a  letter  to  the  New  York  World  which  sums  up 
admirably  the  International  standpoint :  "  It  is  surely  public 
opinion  out  of  office  and  not  the  party  in  office,"  wrote  Mr. 
Stokes,  "that  does  the  most  for  progress  in  this  country,  and 
it  seems  to  me  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  any  party  in 
power  has  ever  led  public  opinion  effectively  at  any  time. 
I  share  with  very  many  Socialists  the  view  that  it  is  entirely 


"REFORMISM"    IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       185 

fallacious  to  suppose  that  more  can  be  done  at  this  stage  of 
the  world's  progress  through  politics,  than  through  'educa- 
tion, agitation,  and  perpetual  criticism.'" 

I  have  referred  to  Mr.  Berger  as  a  "reformist"  to  distin- 
guish his  policies  from  the  professed  opportunism  of  some  of 
the  British  Socialists.  But  I  have  also  noted  that  his  tactics 
and  philosophy,  as  both  he  and  they  have  publicly  acknowl- 
edged, are  alike  at  many  points.  For  example,  his  views, 
like  theirs,  often  seem  less  democratic  than  those  of  many 
non-Socialist  radicals,  or  even  of  the  average  American. 
Years  after  the  labor  unions  and  the  farmers  of  most  of  the 
States  had  indorsed  direct  legislation,  and  in  a  year  when  it 
wras  already  becoming  the  law  of  several  States,  Mr.  Berger, 
looking  out  for  the  interests  of  what  he  and  his  associates 
frankly  call  the  "political  machine"  of  the  Wisconsin  Party, 
damned  it  by  faint  praise,  though  it  was  an  element  of  his  own 
platform ;  and  he  had  claimed  credit  for  having  first  proposed 
it  in  Wisconsin.  He  acknowledged  that  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  make  towards  Socialism  and  are  the  surest  way 
in  the  end,  but  urged  that  they  are  "also  the  longest  way," 
and  wrote  in  the  Social-Democratic  Herald:  — 

"The  real  class  conscious  proletariat  is  still  in  a  minority,  and 
liable  to  stay  so  for  a  time  to  come.  It  can  only  show  results  by 
fighting  as  a  well-organized,  compact  mass. 

"But  the  initiative,  the  referendum,  and  the  right  to  recall  have 
a  tendency  to  destroy  parties  and  loosen  tightly  knit  political  or- 
ganizations. 

"Therefore,  while  the  Socialist  Party  stands  for  direct  legislation 
as  a  democratic  measure,  we  are  well  aware  that  the  working  class 
will  be  helped  very  little  by  getting  it.  We  are  well  aware  that  the 
proletariat,  before  all  things,  must  get  more  economic  and  politi- 
cal, strength  —  more  education  and  more  wisdom.  That,  besides 
teaching  cooperation,  we  must  build  political  machines."  (3)  (My 
italics.) 

On  the  question  of  Woman  Suffrage,  also,  Mr.  Berger  long 
showed  a  similarly  hesitating  attitude,  sajnng  that  intelligent 
women  "have  always  exercised  great  political  power"  even 
without  the  ballot ;  doubting  whether  women's  vote  would 
help  the  advance  of  humanity  "in  the  coming  time  of  transi- 
tion." saying  this  is  a  question  of  fact  on  which  Socialists  may 
honestly  differ,  and  urging  that  "no  one  will  deny  that  the 
great  majority  of  the  women  of  the  present  day  —  and  that 


186  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

is  the  only  point  we  can  view  now,  are  illiberal,  unprogressive, 
and  reactionary  to  a  greater  extent  than  the  men  of  the  same 
stratum  of  society."  (The  italics  are  mine.)  Finally,  Mr. 
Berger  concluded  as  follows,  twice  throwing  the  balance  of 
his  opinion  from  one  scale  into  another :  — 

"Now,  if  all  this  is  correct,  female  suffrage,  for  generations  to 
come,  will  simply  mean  the  deliberate  doubting  of  the  strength 
of  a  certain  church,  —  will  mean  a  great  addition  to  the  forces  of 
ignorance  and  reaction.  .  .  . 

"However,  we  have  woman  suffrage  in  our  platform,  and  we 
should  stand  by  it.  Because  in  the  end  it  will  help  to  interest  the 
other  half  of  humanity  in  social  and  political  affairs,  and  it  will  be  of 
great  educational  value  on  both  women  and  men.  .  .  . 

"Nevertheless,  it  is  asking  a  great  deal  of  the  proletariat  when 
we  are  requested  to  delay  the  efficiency  of  our  movement  for  genera- 
tions on  that  count.  And  we  surely  ought  not  to  lay  such  stress 
on  this  one  point  as  to  injure  the  progress  of  the  general  political 
and  economic  movement  —  the  success  of  which  is  bound  to  help 
the  women  as  much  as  the  men."  (9)  (The  italics  are  mine.) 

It  is  no  wonder,  with  such  a  lukewarm  advocacy  of  its  own 
platform  by  the  Party's  organ  and  its  chief  spokesman,  that 
some  of  the  lesser  figures  in  the  Milwaukee  movement  — 
such  as  certain  Socialist  aldermen  —  seem  to  have  lost  the 
road  altogether  until  even  Mr.  Berger  has  been  forced  to  call 
a  halt.  For  the  leader  of  a  "political  machine,"  to  use  Mr. 
Berger's  own  expression,  may  allow  himself  certain  liberties; 
but  when  his  followers  do  the  same,  disintegration  is  in  sight. 
Witness  Mr.  Berger's  words,  written  only  a  few  weeks  after 
the  Socialist  victory  in  Milwaukee ;  words  which  seem  to 
indicate  that  the  tendencies  he  complains  of  were  the  direct 
result,  not  of  slow  degeneration,  but  of  the  local  Party's 
reformistic  teachings  and  campaign  methods  :  — 

"The  most  dangerous  part  of  the  situation  is  that  some  of  our 
comrafles  seem  to  forget  that  we  are  a  Socialist  Party. 

"They  not  only  begin  to  imitate  the  ways  and  methods  of  the 
old  parties,  but  even  their  reasoning  and  their  thoughts  are  getting 
to  be  more  bourgeois  and  less  proletarian.  To  some  of  these  men  the 
holding  of  the  office  —  whatever  the  office  may  be  —  seems  to  be 
the  final  aim  of  the  Socialist  Party.  These  poor  sticks  do  not  know 
that  there  are  many  Socialists  who  deplore  that  the  necessity  of 
electing  and  appointing  officeholders  will  make  it  twice  as  hard 
to  keep  the  Socialist  Party  pure  in  this  country,  than  in  other 
countries  where  the  movement  is  relieved  of  this  duty  and  danger. 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE   UNITED  STATES       187 

"And  even  some  of  the  aldermen  seem  to  have  lost  their  Socialist 
class  consciousness  —  if  they  ever  had  any." 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Mr.  Berger  can  expect  to  maintain 
respect  for  principles  that  he  teaches  and  applies  so  loosely 
himself.  It  is,  furthermore,  difficult  to  understand  how  he 
expects  submission  to  the  decisions  of  his  organization  when 
he  himself  has  been  on  the  verge  of  revolt  both  against  the 
national  and  international  movement.  He  has  always 
avowed  his  profound  disagreement  with  the  methods  of  the 
Socialists  in  practically  every  State  but  his  own.  He  and 
his  associates  were  at  one  moment  so  far  from  the  national 
and  international  principle  that  they  sought  to  support  a 
non-Socialist  candidate  for  judge  —  on  the  specious  ground 
that  no  Socialist  was  nominated.  But  the  National  Congress 
condemned  and  forbade  such  action  by  an  overwhelming 
majority.  Mr.  Berger 's  unwillingness  to  act  with  his  organi- 
zation even  went  so  far  at  one  point  that  he  was  punished  by 
a  temporary  suspension  from  the  National  Executive  Com- 
mittee. And,  finally,  he  even  threatened  in  Socialist  Berlin 
that  if  the  American  Party,  which  he  claimed  held  his  views 
on  immigration,  was  not  allowed  to  have  its  way,  it  would 
pay  no  attention  to  the  decision  of  the  Internationa]  Congress ; 
though  at  the  very  time  he  was  threatening  rebellion  the 
decision  of  the  recent  Congress  showed  that  two-thirds  of  the 
American  Party  stood,  not  with  him,  but  with  the  Inter- 
national Movement.  Should  he  be  surprised  if  Milwaukee 
aldermen,  like  himself,  interpret  Socialism  as  they  see  fit, 
and  forget  that  they  are  a  part  of  a  Socialist  Party  ? 

But  while  Mr.  Berger  and  the  present  policies  that  are 
guiding  American  "reformist"  Socialists  differ  profoundly 
from  those  of  the  International  movement,  and  resemble  in 
some  ways  the  policies  of  the  non-Socialist  reformers  of  Wis- 
consin and  other  States,  in  other  respects  there  is  a  difference. 
The  labor  policy  of  the  collectivist  reformers  and  of  the  "re- 
formist" Socialists  might  be  expected  to  differ  somewhat 
—  not  in  what  is  ordinarily  called  the  labor  legislation,  i.e. 
factory  reform,  workingmen's  compensation,  old  age  pensions, 
etc.,  but  in  their  attitude  to  labor  organizations  and  the  labor 
struggle  :  strikes,  boycotts,  and  injunctions. 

Senator  La  Follette's  followers  are  in  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority farmers  ;  the  Wisconsin  "Social -Democrats,"  as  they  call 
themselves,  have  secured  little  more  than  one  per  cent  of  the 


188  SOCIALISM   AS  IT   IS 

vote  of  the  State  outside  of  Milwaukee  and  a  few  other  towns, 
and  even  less  in  the  country.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ma- 
jority of  the  workingmen  of  Milwaukee  and  several  other 
towns  vote  for  the  Socialists,  while  those  who  do  not  are 
usually  not  followers  of  Senator  La  Follette,  but  Catholics 
and  Democrats.  The  Wisconsin  "Insurgents"  have  as  yet 
by  no  means  taken  the  usual  capitalist  position  in  the  struggle 
between  employers  and  labor  unions,  but  they  have  shown 
repeatedly  that  they  are  conscious  that  they  represent  pri- 
marily the  small  property  holders  and  the  business  com- 
munity generally,  including  the  small  shareholders  of  the 
"trusts." 

La  Follette 's  Weekly,  in  an  important  article  defending  direct 
legislation  and  the  recall,  says  that  the  reason  "we,  the  peo- 
ple," do  not  give  enough  attention  to  public  measures  is  that 
"we  are  so  busy  with  our  private  affairs,"  and  continues: 
"Indeed,  our  success  in  our  private  enterprises,  nay  even 
equality  of  opportunity  to  engage  in  private  enterprises,  is 
coming  more  and  more  to  depend  upon  the  measure  of  pro- 
tection which  we  may  receive  through  our  government  from 
the  unjust  encroachments  of  the  power  of  centralized  Big 
Business."  These  "State  Socialist"  radicals  represent  pri- 
marily small  business  men  and  independent  farmers,  who  are 
often  employers,  and  their  friendship  to  employees  will  neces- 
sarily have  to  be  subordinated  whenever  the  two  interests 
come  into  conflict. 

Mr.  Berger  and  the  Wisconsin  Social-Democrats  on  the 
other  hand  represent  primarily  the  workingmen  of  the  cities, 
especially  those  who  are  so  fortunate  as  to  be  members  of 
labor  unions.  The  "Social  Democrats"  appeal,  however, 
for  the  votes  of  the  farmers,  of  "the  small  business  man,"  and 
of  "the  large  business  men  who  are  decent  employers"; 
they  announce  that  the  rights  of  corporations  will  be  pro- 
tected under  their  administrations,  declare  that  they  who 
"take  the  risks  of  business"  are  entitled  "to  a  fair  return"  ; 
and  have  convinced  many  that  they  are  not  for  the 
present  anti-capitalistic  in  their  policy,  though  they  have  not 
as  yet  succeeded  in  getting  very  much  capitalistic  support. 

For  many  years,  indeed,  the  struggle  between  employers 
and  unions  has  been  less  acute  in  Milwaukee  than  in  many 
other  large  cities,  while  wages  and  conditions  are  on  the  whole 
no  better.  The  Milwaukee  Socialists  have  repeatedly  called 
the  attention  of  employers  to  this  relative  industrial  peace 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED   STATES       189 

and  have  attributed  it  to  their  influence,  much  to  the  disgust 
of  the  more  militant  Socialists,  who  claim  that  strikes  are 
the  only  indication  of  a  fighting  spirit  on  the  part  of  the 
workers.  Mr.  Berger,  for  example,  has  explained  "the  rare 
occurrence  of  strikes  in  Milwaukee"  as  being  due  largely  to 
the  Social-Democrats  of  that  city  who,  he  says,  "have  opposed 
almost  every  strike  that  has  been  declared  here."  (10) 

Certainly  the  attitude  of  the  Socialists  towards  the  em- 
ployers in  one  of  the  largest  industries,  brewing,  has  on  the 
whole  been  exceptionally  friendly,  as  evidenced  among  other 
things  by  the  Socialists'  appointment  of  one  of  a  leading 
brewery  manager  (who  was  not  even  a  Socialist)  as  debt  com- 
missioner of  the  city,  and  their  active  campaign  for  the 
brewing  interests,  including  a  denunciation  of  county  option, 
though  this  measure  has  already  been  indorsed  by  both  of 
the  capitalistic  parties  even  in  the  liquor-producing  State  of 
Kentucky,  as  well  as  elsewhere,  and  is  favored  by  very  many 
Socialists,  not  as  a  means  of  advancing  prohibition,  but  as 
the  fairest  present  way  of  settling  the  controversy. 

But  even  relative  peace  between  capital  and  labor  is  not 
lasting  in  our  present  society  and  it  will  scarcely  last  in  Mil- 
waukee. Already  there  are  signs  of  what  is  likely  to  happen, 
and  the  business-men  admirers  of  Milwaukee  Socialism  are 
beginning  to  drop  away.  A  few  more  strikes,  and  Berger 
and  his  associates  may  be  forced  to  abandon  completely 
their  claim  that  it  is  to  the  interest  of  employers,  with  some 
exceptions,  to  elect  Socialists  to  office. 

The  situation  after  a  recent  strike  in  Milwaukee  is  thus 
summed  up  by  the  New  York  Volkszeitung,  a  great  admirer, 
on  the  whole,  of  the  Milwaukee  movement :  — 

"The  new  measures  which  are  taken  for  the  betterment  of  the 
city  transportation  system,  for  the  preparation  of  better  residence 
conditions  and  parks  for  the  poorer  classes  of  the  people,"  says  the 
Volkszeitung,  "did  not  much  disturb  Milwaukee's  'Best  Society.' 
Rather  the  opposite.  For  all  these  things  did  not  at  the  bottom 
harm  their  interests,  but  were,  on  the  contrary,  quite  to  their  taste, 
in  so  far  as  they  rather  increased  than  injured  the  pleasure  of  their 
own  lives. 

"But  at  last  what  had  to  happen,  did  happen.  The  moment 
a  great  conflict  between  capital  and  labor  broke  out  in  the  great 
community  of  Milwaukee,  the  caliber  of  the  city  administration 
was  bound  to  show  itself.  .  .  . 

"The  prohibition  which  Mayor  Seidel  issued  to  the  police,  not 
to  interfere  for  either  side,  his  grounds  and  those  of  the  city  council's 


190  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

presiding  officer,  Comrade  Melms,  their  instructions  to  the  striking 
'  garment  workers  '  how  they  should  conduct  the  strike  in  order  to 
win  a  victory,  the  admonition  that  they  might  safely  call  a  scab  a 
scab  without  official  interference  —  all  this  is  of  decisive  importance, 
not  only  for  its  momentary  effect  on  the  Milwaukee  strike,  but 
especially  for  the  Socialist  propaganda,  for  the  demonstration  of 
the  tremendous  advantage  the  working  people  can  get  even  at  the 
present  moment  by  the  election  of  Socialist  candidates.  .  .  . 

"And  now  it  is  all  over  with  the  half  well-disposed  attitude  that 
had  been  assumed  towards  our  comrades  in  the  city  administration. 
With  burning  words  the  capitalistic  and  commercial  authorities 
protest  against  these  official  expressions,  as  being  likely  to  disturb 
'law  and  order'  and  as  having  the  object  of  stirring  up  the  class 
struggle  and  of  undermining  respect  for  the  law. 

"That  came  about  which  must  come  about,  if  our  Milwaukee 
comrades  did  their  duty.  And  they  have  done  it,  at  the  right 
moment,  and  without  hesitation.  And  this  must  never  be  forgotten. 
But  the  real  battle  between  them  and  their  capitalist  opponent 
begins  now  for  the  first  time." 

Here  is  the  keynote  of  the  situation.  Only  as  more  and 
more  serious  strikes  occur  will  the  Milwaukee  movement 
be  forced  to  emphasize  its  labor  unionism  rather  than  its 
reforms.  It  will  then,  in  all  probability,  be  forced  to  take 
up  an  aggressive  labor-union  attitude  like  that  of  the  non- 
Socialist  Labor  Party  in  San  Francisco.  One  action  at  least 
of  Mayor  McCarthy  in  the  latter  city  was  decidedly  more 
threatening  to  the  local  employing  interests  than  any  taken 
in  Milwaukee,  which  after  all  had  met  the  approval  of  one  of 
the  capitalistic  papers  (i.e.  the  Free  Press).  The  Bulletin  of 
the  United  Garment  Workers,  though  grateful  for  the  atti- 
tude of  the  mayor  in  their  Milwaukee  strike,  uses  language 
just  as  laudatory  concerning  this  action  of  the  anti-Socialist 
Labor  mayor  of  San  Francisco. (6) 

(6)  The  following  account  is  taken  from  the  Garment  Workers'  Bulletin :  — 
"Recently  the  hod  carriers  in  San  Francisco  presented  a  petition  to  their 
employers  for  increased  pay  and  pressed  for  its  consideration.  This  gave  the 
members  of  the  National  Association  of  Manufacturers  the  opportunity  they 
longed  for  to  open  war  in  San  Francisco,  and  they  promptly  availed  themselves 
of  it.  The  petition  was  refused,  of  course,  and  two  large  lime  manufacturers  in 
the  city  took  a  hand.  The  contractors  resolved  on  heroic  measures,  and 
work  was  stopped  on  some  sixty  buildings  to  'bring  labor  to  its  senses.' 
Then  Mayor  McCarthy  came  into  the  controversy.  He  called  his  board 
of  public  workers  together  and  remarked :  '  I  see  all  the  contractors  are 
tying  up  work  because  of  the  hod  carriers'  request.  Better  notify  these 
fellows  to  at  once  clear  all  streets  of  building  material  before  these  structures 
and  to  move  away  those  elevated  walks  and  everything  else  from  the  streets.' 
The  board  so  ordered.  Then  Mr.  McCarthy  said  :  '  Notice  that  those  lime 
fellows  are  taking  quite  an  interest  in  starting  trouble.  Guess  we  had  better 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       191 

The  "reformist"  Socialists  lay  much  stress  upon  their 
loyalty  to  existing  labor  unions.  Some  even  favor  the  crea- 
tion of  a  non-Socialist  Labor  Party,  more  or  less  like  those  of 
San  Francisco  or  Australia  or  Great  Britain.  Indeed,  the 
reformists  have  often  acknowledged  their  close  kinship  with 
the  semi-Socialist  wing  of  the  British  Labour  Party,  and  this 
relationship  is  recognized  by  the  latter.  All  Socialists  will 
agree  that  even  the  reformists,  as  a  rule,  represent  the  in- 
terests of  the  labor-union  movement  better  than  other  parties ; 
but  the  Socialist  Party  is  vastly  more  than  a  mere  reformist 
trade-union  party,  and  most  Socialists  feel  that  to  reduce 
it  to  this  role  would  be  to  deprive  it  of  the  larger  part  of  its 
power  even  to  help  the  unions. 

In  the  statement  of  Mr.  Debs  already  quoted  in  part  in 
this  chapter,  he  also  expresses  the  opposition  of  the  Socialist 
majority  to  converting  the  organization  into  a  mere  trade- 
union  Party :  — 

"There  is  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  some  to  join  hands  with 
reactionary  trade  unionists  in  local  emergencies  and  in  certain 
temporary  situations  to  effect  some  specific  purpose,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  in  harmony  with  our  revolutionary  program.  No 
possible  good  can  come  of  any  kind  of  a  political  alliance,  ex- 
pressed or  implied,  with  trade  unions  or  the  leaders  of  trade  unions 
who  are  opposed  to  Socialism  and  only  turn  to  it  for  use  in  some 
extremity,  the  fruit  of  their  own  reactionary  policy. 

"Of  course  we  want  the  support  of  trade  unionists,  but  only  of 
those  who  believe  in  Socialism  and  are  ready  to  vote  and  work  with 
us  for  the  overthrow  of  capitalism." 

It  would  seem  from  the  expressions  of  Milwaukee  Socialists 
that  they,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  policy  of  Mr.  Debs, 
are  working  by  opportunist  methods  towards  a  trade  union 
party,  and  that  form  of  collectivism  advocated  by  the  Labor 
Parties  of  Great  Britain  and  Australia.  But  they  have  been 
in  power  now  in  Milwaukee  for  nearly  two  years  and  have  had 
a  strong  contingent  in  the  Wisconsin  legislature,  while  their 
representative  in  Congress  has  had  time  to  define  his  atti- 
tude in  a  series  of  bills  and  resolutions.  We  are  in  a  position, 
then,  to  judge  their  policy  not  by  their  words  alone,  but  also 
by  their  acts. 

notify  them  that  their  temporary  permits  for  railroad  spurs  to  their  plants 
are  no  longer  in  force.'  And  due  notice  went  forth.  The  result  was 
that  the  trouble  with  the  hod  carriers  was  settled  in  a  week,  and  the  contem- 
plated industrial  war  in  the  city  was  indefinitely  postponed.  ..." 


192  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Let  us  first  examine  their  municipal  policy.  This  assumes 
special  importance  since  the  installation  of  Socialist  officials 
in  Berkeley  (California),  Butte  (Montana),  Flint  (Michigan), 
several  smaller  towns  in  Kansas,  Illinois,  and  other  States,  as 
a  result  of  the  elections  of  April,  1911.  To  these  victories 
have  recently  been  added  others  (in  November,  1911)  in 
Schenectady  (New  York),  Lima  and  Lorain  (Ohio),  New- 
castle (Pennsylvania),  besides  very  large  votes  or  the  election 
of  minor  officials  in  many  places  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio, 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Kansas,  Illinois,  Minnesota,  Missouri,  Wisconsin, 
Oregon,  Washington,  Utah,  California,  and  other  States. 

While  the  officials  elected  received  in  nearly  every  case  only 
a  plurality  (this  is  true  also  of  most  of  those  elected  in  Mil- 
waukee), and  local  or  temporary  issues  existed  in  many  in- 
stances, which  caused  the  Socialist  Party  to  be  used  largely 
for  purposes  of  protest,  a  part  of  the  vote  was  undoubtedly 
cast  for  a  type  of  municipal  reform  somewhat  more  radical 
than  other  parties  have,  as  a  rule,  been  ready  to  offer  in  this 
country ;  up  to  the  present  time,  at  least,  a  considerable  part 
of  the  vote  is  undoubtedly  to  be  accredited  to  convinced 
Socialists. 

Milwaukee  being  as  yet  the  only  important  example  of  an 
important  American  municipality  that  has  rested  in  Socialist 
hands  for  any  considerable  period,  I  shall  confine  myself 
largely  to  the  discussion  of  the  movement  in  that  city.  Some 
of  those  already  in  office  in  other  places  have,  moreover,  taken 
the  Milwaukee  policy  as  their  model  and  announced  their  in- 
tention to  follow  it.  Mayor  Seidel's  statement  after  a  year 
in  office,  and  the  explanations  of  the  Rev.  Carl  Thompson 
(the  city  clerk)  made  about  the  same  time,  cover  the  essential 
points  for  the  present  discussion. 

Both  the  statement  of  the  mayor  and  that  of  the  city 
clerk  are  concerned  with  matters  that  interest  primarily 
the  business  man  and  taxpayer.  Mr.  Thompson  disclaims 
that  there  is  anything  essentially  new  even  in  the  Socialists' 
plans,  to  say  nothing  of  their  performances.  He  says  of  the 
most  discussed  municipal  projects  under  consideration  by  the 
Socialist  administration  that  all  were  advocated  either  by 
former  administrations,  by  one  or  both  of  the  older  parties  or 
by  some  of  their  leading  members.  He  mentions  the  proposed 
river  park,  railway  terminal  station,  and  electric  lighting 
plans,  as  well  as  home  rule  for  Milwaukee,  as  being  all 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       193 

strictly  conservative  projects  (as  they  are) .  Other  plans  men- 
tioned by  Mayor  Seidel — harbor  improvements,  playgrounds, 
a  sterilization  plant,  and  isolation  hospital  —  are  approved, 
if  not  by  the  conservatives  of  Milwaukee,  at  least  by  those  of 
many  other  cities.  Some  minor  and  less  expensive  proposals, 
a  child  welfare  commission,  a  board  of  recreation,  and  muni- 
cipal dances  are  somewhat  more  novel.  These  are  all  the 
social  reforms  mentioned  by  the  mayor,  as  planned  or  accom- 
plished, with  the  exception  of  those  that  have  to  do  primarily 
with  efficiency  or  economy  in  municipal  administration,  such 
as  improvement  in  street  cleaning,  sanitary  inspection  and 
inspection  of  weights  and  measures,  which  all  conservative 
reform  administration  seek  to  bring  about;  many  cities, 
especially  abroad,  having  been  eminently  successful  in  this 
direction. 

To  secure  the  political  support  of  taxpayers  and  business 
men,  further  evidence  was  required  to  show  that  the  adminis- 
tration is  neither  doing  nor  likely  to  do  anything  unprece- 
dented. They  want  a  safe  and  sane  business  policy,  and 
assurances  that  new  sources  of  income  will,  if  possible,  be 
secured  and  applied  to  the  reduction  of  taxation ;  or  that,  in 
case  taxes  are  raised,  municipal  reforms  will  so  improve  busi- 
ness and  rental  values,  as  to  bring  into  their  pockets  more 
than  the  increased  taxation  has  cost  them. 

Mayor  Seidel  and  City  Clerk  Thompson  presented  entirely 
satisfactory  evidences  on  all  these  points.  Business  methods 
have  been  introduced,  a  " complete  inventory"  of  the  prop- 
erty of  the  city  is  being  made,  "blanket  appropriations"  are 
done  away  with,  "a  new  system  of  voucher  bills  has  been 
installed,"  all  the  departments  are  being  brought  on  "a  uni- 
form accounting  basis."  Finally,  taxable  property  is  being 
listed  that  was  formerly  overlooked,  and  the  city  is  more 
careful  in  settling  financial  claims  against  it.  Mayor  Seidel 
and  City  Clerk  Thompson  both  promise  that  taxes  will 
not  be  increased;  the  former  points  to  the  new  resources 
from  property  that  had  escaped  taxation  and  to  the  future 
rise  in  value  of  land  the  city  intends  to  purchase,  the  latter 
refers  to  "revenue-producing  enterprises  which  will  relieve 
the  burden  of  taxation  rather  than  increase  it."  Neither 
goes  so  far  as  to  suggest  any  plan,  like  the  present  law  of 
Great  Britain,  introduced  by  a  capitalist  government,  accord- 
ing to  which  not  only  are  the  taxes  of  the  wealthy  raised,  but 
one  fifth  of  the  future  increase  of  value  of  city  lands,  as  being 


194  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

due  to  the  community,  accrues  to  the  public  treasury.  It  is 
true  that  such  measures  would  have  to  be  approved  by  the 
State  of  Wisconsin,  but  this  would  not  prevent  them  being 
made  the  one  prominent  issue  in  the  city  campaign,  and  in- 
sistently demanded  until  they  are  obtained.  The  mayor's 
attitude  on  this  tax  question,  which  underlies  all  others,  far 
from  being  Socialistic,  is  not  even  radical. 

The  tendency  seems  to  have  been  widespread  in  the  municipal 
campaigns  undertaken  by  the  Socialists  in  the  fall  of  1911,  to 
abandon  even  radical,  though  capitalistic,  municipal  reformers' 
policy  of  raising  new  taxes  to  pay  for  reforms  that  bring  modest 
benefits  to  the  workers,  but  chiefly  raise  realty  values  and  promote 
the  interests  of  "  business,"  and  to  substitute  for  this  the  conserva- 
tive policy  of  reducing  taxes.  Thus  the  Bridgeport  Socialist  advised 
the  voters :  — 

"  Municipal  ownership  means  cheaper  water,  cheaper  light, 
cheaper  gas,  cheaper  electricity,  and  a  steady  revenue  into  the  city 
treasury  which  would  reduce  taxes."  (Italics  mine.)  (11) 

One  might  infer  that  the  masses  of  Bridgeport  were  already  suffi- 
ciently supplied  with  schools,  parks,  and  all  the  free  services  a  mu- 
nicipality can  give. 

Of  course  it  is  true  that  a  considerable  part  of  the  wage  earners 
in  our  small  cities  own  their  own  homes  (subject  often  to  heavy 
mortgages)  and,  oilier  things  remaining  as  they  are,  would  like  to 
have  taxes  reduced.  But  two  facts  are  indisputable :  the  average 
taxes  paid  by  the  wage  earners  are  insignificant  compared  with 
those  of  the  wealthier  classes,  and  the  wage  earner  gets,  at  first 
at  least,  an  equal  share  in  the  benefits  of  most  municipal  expendi- 
tures. The  Socialists  know  that  most  of  the  economic  benefits  are 
later  absorbed  by  increasing  rents ;  and  that  capitalist  judges  and 
State  governments  will  see  to  it  that  only  such  expenditures  are 
allowed  as  have  this  result,  or  such  as  have  the  effect,  through  im- 
proving efficiency,  of  increasing  profits  faster  than  wages.  Socialists 
recognize,  however,  that  at  least  municipal  collectivism  is  in  the  line 
of  capitalist  progress,  with  some  incidental  benefits  to  labor,  while 
the  policy  of  decreasing  taxes  on  the  unearned  increment  of  land  is 
nothing  less  than  reaction. 

The  only  popular  ground  on  which  such  a  policy  could  be  de- 
fended is  the  fallacy  that  landlords  transmit  to  tenants  the  fluctua- 
tions in  taxes,  in  the  form  of  increased  or  diminished  rents.  Even 
if  this  were  true,  the  tenants  would  be  as  likely  as  not  to  profit  by 
enlarged  municipal  expenditures  (i.e.  in  spite  of  paying  for  a  minor 
part  of  their  cost).  But  in  the  large  cities,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
90  per  cent  of  the  wage  earners,  who  are  tenants,  and  not  home 
owners,  do  not  feel  these  fluctuations  at  all.  Increased  land  taxes 
do  not  as  a  rule  cause  an  increase  in  average  rents.  Increased  land 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        195 

taxes  force  unimproved  land  upon  the  market,  and  compel  its  im- 
provement, to  escape  loss  in  holding  it  unimproved  and  idle.  The 
resulting  increased  competition  for  tenants  operates  on  the  average 
to  reduce  rents,  not  to  increase  them.  The  taxes  are  paid  at  the  cost 
of  reduced  profits  for  the  landlord  —  until  population  begins  to  in- 
crease more  rapidly  than  taxes.  The  capitalist  leaders  perceive  the 
truth  as  regards  this  plainly  enough.  Thus,  in  their  anxiety  to  get 
both  landlord  and  capitalist  support  in  the  last  municipal  cam- 
paign in  New  York  City,  various  allied  real  estate  interests  claimed 
credit  for  their  work  in  keeping  taxes  down.  Commenting  upon 
the  subject,  the  New  York  Times  said:  "Rents  do  not  rise  with 
taxes.  If  they  did,  the  owner  would  merely  need  to  pass  the  taxes 
along  to  the  renter  and  be  rid  of  the  subject."  (12)  The  next  day 
Mayor  Gaynor  in  a  letter  to  the  Times  quoted  a  message  he  had 
sent  to  the  city  council  in  the  previous  year  in  which  he  had  said : 
"Every  landlord  knows  that  he  cannot  add  the  taxes  to  rents.  If 
he  could,  he  would  not  care  how  high  taxes  grew.  He  would  simply 
throw  them  on  his  tenants." 

It  is  difficult,  therefore,  to  see  why  the  tenants  of  New  York  City 
or  Bridgeport  should  favor  lower  taxes,  so  long  as  they  and  their 
children  are  in  need  of  further  public  advantages  that  increased 
taxes  would  enable  the  municipalities  to  supply.  To  favor  reduced 
taxes,  while  private  ownership  of  land  prevails,  is  not  Socialism,  or 
even  progressive  capitalism.  It  is,  as  I  have  said,  reaction. 

The  New  York  Volkszeitung  expresses  in  a  few  words  the 
correct  Socialist  attitude  on  municipal  expenditures.  After 
showing  the  need  of  more  money  for  schools,  hygienic  meas- 
ures, etc.,  it  concludes :  — 

"These  increased  expenditures  of  municipalities  are  thus  ab- 
solutely necessary  if  a  Socialist  city  government  is  to  fulfill  its  tasks. 
Since  the  municipal  expenditures  must  be  raised  through  taxation, 
it  is  evident  that  a  good  Socialist  city  government  must  raise  the 
taxes  if  it  is  up  to  the  level  of  its  duties.  Provided  that  —  as  just 
remarked  —  the  raising  of  the  taxes  is  so  managed  that  the  possess- 
ing classes  are  hit  by  it  and  not  the  poor  and  the  workingmen. 

"  Most  of  the  Socialist  municipal  administrations  have  been  shat- 
tered hitherto  by  the  tax  question ;  that  has  been  especially  evident 
in  France,  where  the  Socialists  lost  the  towns  captured  by  them 
because  their  administration  appeared  to  be  more  costly  than  those 
of  their  capitalist  predecessors.  That  has  happened  especially 
wherever  the  small  capitalist  element  played  a  role  in  the  Socialist 
movement. 

"We  shall  undoubtedly  have  this  experience  in  America,  also, 
if  we  do  not  make  it  clear  to  the  masses  of  workingmen  that  good 
city  government  for  them  means  a  more  expensive  city  government, 


196  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

and  that  they  are  interested  in  this  increase  of  the  cost  of  the  city 
administration."  (13) 

If  the  Socialists  promise  much  and  perform  comparatively  . 
little,  they  have  as  a  valid  reason  the  fact  that  the  city  does 
not  have  the  authority.  But  opponents  can  also  say,  as 
does  the  Milwaukee  Journal,  that  "the  administration  would 
not  dare  to  carry  out  its  promises  to  engage  in  municipal 
Socialism  if  it  had  the  authority."  For  while  municipal 
"Socialism"  or  public  ownership  is  perfectly  good  capitalism, 
it  is  not  always  good  politics  in  a  community  where  the 
small  taxpayers  dominate. 

While  the  plans  for  municipal  wood  and  coal  yards  and 
plumbing  shops  were  doubtless  abandoned  in  Milwaukee 
by  reason  of  legal  limitations,  and  not  merely  to  please  the 
small  traders,  as  some  have  contended,  no  Socialist  reason 
can  be  given  for  the  practical  abandonment  years  ago  of  the 
proposed  plan  for  municipal  ownership  of  street  railways. 
If  the  charter  prohibited  such  an  important  measure  as  this, 
all  efforts  should  have  been  concentrated  on  changing  the 
charter.  Socialists  do  not  usually  allow  their  world-wide 
policy,  or  even  their  present  demands  to  be  shaped  by  a  city 
charter. 

If  Mr.  Berger  had  announced  earlier  and  more  clearly,  and 
if  he  had  repeated  with  sufficient  frequency,  his  recent  dec- 
laration that  Milwaukee  is  administered  by  Socialists  but  does 
not  have  a  Socialist  administration,  he  would  have  avoided  a 
world  of  misunderstanding.  In  fact,  if  he  had  enunciated 
this  principle  with  sufficient  emphasis  before  the  municipal 
election  of  1910,  it  is  highly  probable  that  the  Socialists 
would  not  yet  have  won  the  city,  and  would  never  have  felt 
obligated  to  claim,  as  they  often  do  now,  that  Socialists,  who 
must  direct  part  of  their  energies  towards  future  results,  are 
more  efficient  as  practical  reformers  than  non-Socialists,  who 
are  ready  to  sacrifice  every  ultimate  principle,  if  they  have 
any,  for  immediate  achievements. 

The  whole  question  between  reformists  and  revolutionaries 
refers  not  so  much  to  the  policy  of  Socialists  in  control  of 
municipalities,  which  is  often  beyond  criticism,  as  to  the 
value  of  municipal  activity  generally  for  Socialist  purposes. 
None  deny  that  it  has  value,  but  reformists  and  revolution- 
aries ascribe  to  it  different  roles. 

There  are  two  reasons  why  Socialism  cannot  yet  be  applied 


"REFORMISM'.'   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       197 

j 

on  a  municipal  scale  —  one  economic  and  one  political.  I 
do  not  refer  here,  of  course,  to  municipal  ownership,  often 
called  "municipal  Socialism,"  a  typical  manifestation  of 
1  "  State  Socialism,"  but  to  a  policy  that  attempts  to  make  use 
of  the  municipality  against  the  capitalist  class. 

Such  a  policy  is  economically  impossible  to-day  because 
it  would  gradually  drive  capital  to  other  cities  and  so  in- 
directly injure  the  whole  population  including  the  non- 
capitalists.  Indeed,  Mayor  Seidel  especially  denies  that  he 
will  allow  any  "hardship  on  capital,"  and  City  Clerk  Thomp- 
son gives  nearly  a  newspaper  column  of  statistics  to  show  that 
"the  business  of  Milwaukee  has  continued  to  expand"  since 
the  Socialists  came  into  power,  remarking  that  "there  have 
been  no  serious  strikes  or  labor  troubles  in  Milwaukee  for 
years"  —  surely  a  condition  which  employers  will  appreciate. 
Nothing  could  prove  more  finally  than  such  statements,  how 
municipal  governments  at  present  feel  bound  to  serve  the 
business  interests. 

The  political  limitations  of  the  situation  are  similar.  Prof. 
Anton  Menger  says  of  Socialism  as  applied  to  municipalities, 
that  "it  is  necessarily  deferred  to  the  time  when  the  Socialist 
party  will  be  strong  enough  to  take  into  its  hands  the  political 
power  in  the  whole  state  or  the  larger  part  of  it."  It  is 
obviously  impossible  to  force  the  hands  of  an  intelligent  ruling 
majority  merely  by  capturing  one  branch  or  one  local  division 
of  the  government.  As  such  branches  are  captured  they  will 
be  prevented  from  doing  anything  of  importance,  or  forced 
to  act  only  within  the  limits  fixed  by  the  ruling  class. 

This  is  especially  true  in  the  United  States.  We  have 
elaborate  forms  and  external  symbols  of  local  self-govern- 
ment, and  it  may  really  exist  —  as  long  as  the  municipalities 
are  used  for  capitalistic  purposes.  When  it  is  proposed  to 
use  local  self-government  for  Socialist  ends,  however,  it 
instantly  disappears.  Not  only  do  the  States  interfere, 
with  the  national  government  ready  behind  them,  but  the 
centralized  judiciary,  state  and  national,  is  always  at  hand 
to  intervene.  This  is  potential  centralization,  and  for  the 
purposes  of  preventing  radical  or  Socialist  measures  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  is  as  centralized  as  that  of  any  civi- 
lized nation  on  earth. 

Moreover,  the  semblance  of  local  power  given  by  municipal 
victories  brings  a  second  difficulty  to  the  Socialists  —  it 
means  the  election  of  administrators  and  judges.  Now  even 


198  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

under  the  system  of  potential  centralization  through  the 
courts,  legislators  are  useful,  for  they  cannot  be  forced  to  serve 
capitalism.  But  government  must  be  carried  on  and  mayors 
and  judges  are  practically  under  the  control  of  higher  author- 
ities —  in  the  new  commission  plan  of  government,  they  even 
do  the  legislating.  In  the  words  of  the  New  York  Daily 
Catt:  — 

"The  Socialist  Legislator  finds  his  task  a  comparatively  easy  and 
simple  one.  He  proposes  or  supports  every  measure  of  advantage 
to  the  working  class  in  particular  and  to  the  great  majority  of  the 
people  in  general,  barring  such  as  are  of  a  reactionary  character. 
But  the  Socialist  executive  and  the  Socialist  judge  find  themselves 
in  no  such  simple  situation.  Their  activities  are  circumscribed 
by  superior  and  hostile  powers,  and  by  written  constitutions  adopted 
at  the  dictation  of  the  capitalist  class.  How  to  harmonize  their 
activities  with  the  just  demands  of  the  working  class  for  the  im- 
mediate betterment  of  its  conditions,  as  well  as  with  the  Socialist 
program  which  has  for  its  goal  the  ultimate  overthrow  of  the  capital- 
ist social  order,  and  yet  not  come  into  such  conflict  with  the  superior 
and  hostile  powers  as  would  result  in  their  own  removal  from  office 
—  this  question  is  bound  to  assume  a  gravity  not  yet  perhaps 
dreamed  of  by  the  majority  of  American  Socialists. 

"  And  yet  even  now,  while  our  political  power  is  still  small,  the 
charge  of  opportunism,  or  the  neglect  of  principle  in  pursuit  of  some 
practical  advantage,  is  continually  being  raised,  sometimes  justly, 
sometimes  unjustly." 

The  following  from  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  illustrates 
both  the  political  and  the  economic  difficulty  of  enacting 
Socialistic  or  even  radical  measures  in  municipalities.  It  is 
taken  from  a  special  article  on  the  situation  in  Schenectady, 
where  a  Socialist,  Dr.  George  R.  Lunn  had  just  been  elected 
mayor :  — 

"Schenectady  is  trying  hard  to  take  its  dose  of  Socialism  philo- 
sophically. Its  most  staid  and  respectable  citizens,  who  have  been 
staid  and  respectable  Republicans  and  Democrats  all  their  life, 
console  themselves  with  the  thought  that,  after  all,  Old  Dorp  is  Old 
Dorp  —  Old  Dorp  being  the  affectionate  way  of  referring  to  Sche- 
nectady —  and  that  her  best  citizens  are  still  her  best  citizens,  and 
that  Rev.  George  R.  Lunn  and  all  his  Socialist  crew  can't  do  a  great 
amount  of  harm  in  two  years  to  a  city  that  possesses  such  an  iron- 
clad charter  as  that  with  which  Horace  White,  when  he  was  a  Senator, 
endowed  every  city  of  the  second  class  in  the  Empire  State.  The 
conservative  element  in  town  back  that  charter  against  all  the  re- 
forms that  the  minister  who  is  to  be  mayor  and  his  following  of 
machinists,  plumbers,  coachmen,  and  armature  winders  from  the 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE   UNITED  STATES       199 

General  Electric  Works,  who  are  going  to  be  common  councillors 
and  other  things,  can  hope  to  introduce.  .  .  . 

"The  General  Electric  works — as  everybody  agrees —  'made' 
Schenectady.  Census  figures  show  it  and  statistics  of  one  sort  or 
another  show  it.  The  concern  employs  more  than  16,000  men  and 
women  —  as  many  persons  as  there  are  voters  in  the  whole  town. 
It  owns  275  acres  of  land,  and  of  this  about  60  acres  are  occupied 
with  shops  and  buildings.  Its  capital  stock  is  valued  at  $80,000,000. 
The  General  Electric,  or  as  it  is  called  up  here,  the  *G.  E.,'  has 
given  work  to  thousands,  has  brought  a  lot  of  business  into  town, 
has  made  real  estate  in  hitherto  deserted  districts  valuable.  On 
the  tax  assessors'  books  its  property  is  assessed  at  $4,500,000. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  this  is  less  than  25  per  cent  of  its  true  value. 

"If  Dr.  Lunn  should  attempt  to  meddle  with  the.  'G.  E.V 
assessment,  Schenectady  knows  very  well  what  would  happen. 
The  General  Electric  Company  would  pack  up  and  move  away  to 
some  other  town  that  is  pining  for  a  nice  big  factory  and  does  not 
care  much  how  small  taxes  it  pays.  That  is  the  situation.  Of 
course  everybody  agrees  that  the  company  ought  to  be  paying  more, 
but  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  leaving  well  enough  alone  or 
losing  the  company  entirely,  Schenectady  says  leave  well  enough 
alone,  by  all  means.  The  loss  of  the  'G.  E.'  works  would  be  a 
disaster,  from  which  the  Old  Dorp  would  never  recover.  Why, 
even  now  the  company  has  just  opened  a  brand  new  plant  in  Erie, 
Philadelphia,  and  if  Schenectady  does  not  behave,  what  is  to  pre- 
vent the  'G.  E.'  from  moving  all  its  belongings  to  Erie? 

"Dr.  Lunn  has  not  had  much  to  say  regarding  this  phase  of  his 
taxation  reforms.  The  day  after  his  election  he  issued  a  statement, 
however,  which  showed  that  he  did  not  intend  to  do  anything  ex- 
tremely radical :  — 

" '  In  the  matter  of  taxation  we  have  had  something  to  say  during 
the  campaign,  but  we  Socialists  are  too  good  economists  not  to  know 
that  the  burdening  of  our  local  industries  in  the  way  of  taxation 
above  that  placed  upon  them  in  other  cities  would  be  foolhardy. 
Under  the  present  system,  to  which  we  are  opposed,  manufacturing 
concerns  have  their  rights,  and  any  special  burden  placed  upon  them 
by  one  community  above  that  which  is  placed  upon  them  in  other 
communities  would  inevitably  and  of  necessity,  from  the  stand- 
point of  economics,  hinder  their  progress.  We  are  not  in  favor 
of  hindering  their  progress.  We  stand  for  the  greatest  progress 
along  every  line.  We  will  not  only  encourage  industries  in  every 
way  consistent  with  our  principles,  but  will  endeavor  to  bring  new 
industries  to  Schenectady,  and  furthermore,  we  will  succeed  in  doing 
it.'"  (14) 

The  newly  elected  mayor  is  quoted  by  Collier's  Weekly, 
as  saying :  "We  are  only  trying  to  conduct  the  city's  business 


200  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

in  the  same  honest  way  we  should  run  our  own  business." 
Collier's  says  that  the  Socialists  generally  "make  their 
impression  by  mere  business  honesty  and  efficiency,"  distin- 
guishes this  from  what  it  calls  the  "harmful  kind  of  Social- 
ism, "  and  concludes  that,  "watching  the  actual  performances 
of  those  who  choose  to  call  themselves  Socialists,  we  are  thus 
far  unable  to  be  filled  with  terror."  (15) 

Nearly  all  the  comment  at  the  time  of  the  Socialist  munic- 
ipal victories  in  the  fall  of  1911  pointed  out,  in  similar 
terms,  the  contrast  between  the  very  restricted  opportunities 
they  offer  for  the  revolutionary  program  of  Socialism. 
The  editorial  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  is  typical :  — 

"Theoretically  Socialism  is  the  most  ambitious  of  political  pro- 
grams, involving  nothing  short  of  a  whole-nation-wide  or  world-wide 
revolution;  but,  except  a  solitary  Congressman  and  seventeen 
members  of  State  legislatures,  Socialists  so  far  have  been  elected  only 
to  local  offices,  and  those  usually  of  an  administrative  rather  than 
legislative  nature  —  elected,  that  is,  not  to  bring  in  a  brand-new,  all- 
embracing  revolutionary  program,  but  to  work  the  lumbering  old 
bourgeois  machine  in  a  little  honester,  more  intelligent,  kindlier 
manner  perhaps  than  some  Republican  or  Democrat  would  work  it. 

"  Designing  a  new  world  is  more  fascinating  than  scrubbing  off 
some  small  particular  dirt  spot  on  the  old  one  —  but  less  practical." 
(My  italics.)  (16) 

Even  where  revolutionary  Socialists  carry  a  municipality, 
as  they  did  recently  in  Newcastle,  Pennsylvania,  the  benefit 
to  the  labor  movement  is  probably  only  temporary.  There 
the  Socialist  administration  dismissed  the  whole  police  force 
and  filled  their  places  with  Socialists.  The  result  will  un- 
doubtedly be  that  the  State  will  either  make  the  police 
irremovable,  except  by  some  complicated  process,  or  will 
still  further  extend  the  functions  of  the  State  constabulary 
in  times  of  strike.  The  moral  effect  of  the  victory  in  New- 
castle, like  that  in  Schenectady,  after  the  bitter  labor  struggles 
of  recent  years,  cannot  be  questioned,  and  this,  together  with 
temporary  relief  from  petty  persecution  by  local  authorities, 
is  doubtless  worth  all  the  efforts  that  have  been  put  forth  — 
provided  the  Socialists  have  not  promised  themselves  and 
their  supporters  any  larger  or  more  lasting  results. 

It  is  in  view  of  difficulties  such  as  these,  which  exist  to 
some  degree  in  all  countries,  that  in  proportion  as  Socialists 
gain  experience  in  municipal  action,  they  subordinate  it 
to  other  forms  of  activity.  Only  such  "reformists"  as  are 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       201 

ready  to  abandon  the  last  vestiges  of  their  Socialism  persist 
in  emphasizing  a  form  of  action  that  has  a  constant  tendency 
to  compel  all  those  involved  to  give  more  and  more  of  their 
time  and  energy  to  serving  capitalism.  Among  the  first 
Socialist  municipalities  were  those  of  Lille  and  Roubaix 
in  France  —  which  fell  a  number  of  years  ago  into  the  hands 
of  Guesdists,  the  revolutionary  or  orthodox  wing  of  the  party. 
Rappoport  reports  their  present  position  on  this  question  as 
presented  at  the  recent  Congress  at  St.  Quentin,  1911. 

"Among  the  Guesdists  there  are  no  municipal  theorists 
but  a  great  many  practical  municipal  men,  former  or  present 
mayors:  Delory  (Lille),  Paul  Constans  (Montucon),  Com- 
pere-Morel, Hubert  (Nimes),  only  to  mention  those  present 
at  the  Congress.  Through  experience  they  have  learned  that 
what  is  called  municipal  Socialism,  is  good  local  government, 
but  in  no  sense  Socialism.  Free  meals  for  school  children, 
weekly  subsidies  for  child-bearing  women,  etc.,  are  useful  to 
the  working  people ;  this  is  not  Socialism,  but  '  collective 
philanthropy'  according  to  Compere-Morel.  Reforms  are 
good,  but  the  main  thing  is  Socialism.  The  Guesdists  are  no 
adherents  of  the  doctrine,  'all  or  nothing,'  but  they  are 
also  no  admirers  of  the  new  doctrine  of  municipal  Socialism." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  a  few  years  of  experience  in 
this  country  will  persuade  those  American  Socialists  who  are 
now  concentrating  so  much  of  their  attention  on  municipal- 
ities, to  give  more  of  their  energies  to  State  legislatures  and 
to  Congress.  The  present  efforts  will  not  be  lost,  as  they  can 
be  easily  turned  into  a  new  direction.  And  whatever  politi- 
cal reaction  may  seem  to  take  place,  after  certain  illusions 
have  been  shattered,  will  be  a  seeming  reaction  only,  and 
due  to  the  desertion  from  the  ranks  of  the  supporters  of  the 
Socialist  ticket  of  municipal  reformers  who  never  pretended 
to  be  Socialists,  but  who  voted  for  that  Party  merely  because 
no  equally  reliable  non-Socialist  reformers  were  in  the  field, 
or  had  so  good  a  chance  of  election.  Such  separation  of  the 
sheep  from  the  goats  will  be  specially  rapid  when  some  varia- 
tion of  the  so-called  commission  form  of  government  will  have 
been  gradually  introduced,  particularly  where  it  is  accom- 
panied by  direct  legislation  and  the  recall.  For  then  munici- 
pal Socialists  will  be  deprived  of  all  opportunity  of  claiming 
this,  that,  and  the  other  reform  as  having  some  peculiar  rela- 
tion to  Socialism.  And  this  day  is  near  at  hand. 

All  municipal  reforms  that  interest  property  owners  and 


202  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

non-property  owners  alike  will  then  be  enacted  with  compara- 
tive ease  and  rapidity,  while  all  political  parties,  and  all  pro- 
longed political  struggles,  will  center  around  the  conflict  between 
employers  and  employees.  State  and  national  governments 
will  see  to  it  that  no  municipality  in  the  hands  of  the  work- 
ing class  is  allowed  to  retain  any  power  that  it  could  use  to 
injure  or  weaken  capitalism.  And  this  specific  limitation  of 
the  powers  of  municipalities  that  escape  local  capitalist  con- 
trol, will  be  so  frequent  and  open  that  all  the  world  will  see 
that  Socialists  are  going  to  achieve  comparatively  little  by 
"  capturing"  local  offices. 

I  have  already  mentioned  in  a  general  way  the  position  of 
the  Milwaukee  Socialists  in  the  Wisconsin  legislature.  Let 
me  return  now  to  their  representative  in  Congress.  Mr. 
Berger  had  differentiated  himself  from  previous  trade  union 
Congressmen  largely  by  proposing  a  series  of  radical  political 
reforms :  the  abolition  of  the  Senate,  of  the  President's 
veto,  and  of  the  power  of  the  Supreme  Court  over  the  legis- 
lation of  Congress,  and  a  call  for  a  national  constitutional  con- 
vention. Radical  as  they  are,  it  is  probable  that  these 
reforms  are  only  a  foreshadowing  of  the  position  rapidly  being 
assumed  by  a  large  part  of  the  collectivist  but  anti-Socialist 
"insurgents,"  and  "progressives."  Even  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
Justice  Harlan,  it  will  be  recalled,  protest  in  the  strongest  terms 
against  the  power  of  the  Supreme  Court  over  legislation,  and 
the  Wisconsin  legislature,  by  no  means  under  Socialist  control, 
has  initiated  a  call  for  a  national  constitutional  convention. 

In  proposing  his  "old-age  pension"  bill,  Mr.  Berger  ap- 
pended a  clause  which  asserted  that  the  measure  should  not 
be  subject  to  the  interpretation  of. the  Supreme  Court,  and 
showed  that  Congress  had  added  a  similar  clause  to  its  Recon- 
struction Act  in  1868  and  that  it  had  later  been  recognized 
by  the  Supreme  Court.  Later  the  Outlook  suggested  that 
this  was  a  remedy  less  radical  than  the  widely  popular 
recall  of  judges,  and  remarked  that  it  would  only  be  to  follow 
the  constitution  of  most  other  countries.  (17)  Also  Senator 
Owen,  on  the  same  day  on  which  Mr.  Berger  introduced  his 
bill,  spoke  for  the  recall  of  federal  judges  on  the  floor  of  the 
United  States  Senate.  It  is  impossible,  then,  to  make  any 
important  distinction  between  Mr.  Berger's  proposed  politi- 
cal reforms,  sweeping  as  they  are,  and  those  of  other  radicals 
of  the  day. 

The  attitude  of  many  of  the  "Insurgents"  and  "Pro- 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       203 

gressives"  of  the  West,  is  also  about  all  that  mere  trade 
unionists  could  ask  for.  A  large  majority  of  this  element  in 
both  parties  favors  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  law  as  applied 
to  labor  union  boycotts,  and  Senator  La  Follette  and  others 
stand  even  for  the  right  of  government  employees  to  organize 
labor  unions.  The  adoption  of  the  recall  of  judges,  owing 
largely  to  non-Socialist  efforts  in  Oregon,  California,  and 
Arizona,  will  make  anti-union  injunctions  in  strikes  and  boy- 
cotts improbable  in  the  courts  of  those  States,  and  the  widely 
accepted  proposal  for  the  direct  election  of  the  federal  judi- 
ciary would  have  a  similar  effect  in  the  federal  courts.  It 
may  be  many  years  before  these  measures  become  general  or 
effective,  but  there  can  be  no  question  that  they  are  demanded 
by  a  large,  sincere,  and  well-organized  body  of  opinion  outside 
of  the  Socialist  Party.  The  Wisconsin  legislature  and  most 
other  progressive  bodies  have  so  far  failed  to  limit  injunctions. 
But  this  has  been  done  in  the  constitution  of  Oklahoma,  and 
I  have  suggested  reasons  for  believing  that  this  prohibition 
may  soon  be  favored  by  "Progressives"  generally. 

In  the  first  Socialist  speech  ever  made  in  Congress,  Mr. 
Berger  laid  bare  his  economic  philosophy  and  program.  The 
subject  was  the  reduction  of  the  tariff  on  wool  and  its  manu- 
factures, and  Mr.  Berger  defined  his  position  on  the  tariff  as 
well  as  still  larger  issues.  He  declared  himself  practically 
a  free  trader,  though  of  course  he  did  not  consider  free  trade 
as  a  panacea,  and  his  speech,  according  to  the  Socialist  as 
well  as  other  reports,  was  received  with  a  storm  of  applause  — 
especially,  of  course,  from  free-trade  Democrats. 

He  pointed  out  that  the  manufacturer,  having  thoroughly 
mastered  the  home  market,  had  found  that  tariff  wars  were 
shutting  him  out  from  the  foreign  markets  he  now  needs.  He 
might  have  added,  as  evidenced  by  the  nature  of  the  pro- 
posed reciprocity  treaty  with  Canada,  that  many  manufac- 
turers are  more  interested  in  cheap  raw  material  and  cheap 
food  for  their  workers  (cheap  food  making  low  wages  possible, 
as  in  free-trade  Great  Britain)  than  they  are  in  a  high  tariff, 
and  this  even  in  some  instances  where  they  have  a  certain 
need  for  protection  for  the  finished  product  and  where  no 
great  export  trade  is  in  view. 

Mr.  Berger  forgot  England  when  he  said  that  the  tariff 
falls  on  the  poor  man's  head,  for  England  has  shown  that  the 
abolition  of  the  tariff  does  not  benefit  the  poor  man  in  the 
slightest  degree.  Poverty  is  far  more  widespread  there  than 


204  SOCIALISM  AS   IT  IS 

here.  He  pointed  to  the  fact  that  the  importation  of  goods 
into  the  United  States  was  restricted,  while  that  of  labor  was 
not.  He  forgot  that  where  both  are  restricted,  as  in  Australia, 
the  workers  are  no  better  off  than  here. 

The  arguments  employed  in  Mr.  Berger's  speech,  in  so  far 
as  they  referred  to  the  tariff,  were  for  the  most  part  not  to 
be  distinguished  from  those  used  by  the  Democrats  in  behalf 
of  important  capitalistic  elements  of  the  population,  and  hence 
the  welcome  with  which  they  were  received  by  the  Democratic 
Congress  and  press.  The  Socialist  matter  in  the  speech  relat- 
ing only  indirectly  to  the  tariff  was,  of  course,  less  favorably 
commented  upon. 

Mr.  Berger's  second  speech  before  Congress  was  also  signifi- 
cant. It  was  in  support  of  governmental  old-age  pensions, 
a  very  radical  departure  for  the  United  States  and  difficult  of 
enactment  because  of  our  federal  system  —  but  already,  as 
Mr.  Berger  said,  in  force  in  Great  Britain,  France,  Germany, 
Austria,  Italy,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  Canada.  Since 
the  legislatures  in  all  these  countries  are  controlled  by  oppo- 
nents of  Socialism,  it  is  evident  that  such  measures  have  been 
adopted  from  other  than  Socialist  motives.  In  fact  they  have 
no  necessary  relation  to  Socialism  at  all,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
have  been  widely  enacted  for  capitalistic  reasons  without 
regard  to  the  demands  or  power  of  the  workers. 

Mr.  Berger  is  reported  to  have  said  a  few  days  after  this 
speech  :  "The  idea  will  in  five  years  have  been  incorporated 
into  law.  Both  of  the  old  parties  within  that  time  will  have 
incorporated  the  theory  into  their  platforms.  Both  the  old 
parties  to-day  are  approaching  Socialistic  ideas,  and  appro- 
priating our  ideas  to  save  themselves  from  the  coming  over- 
throw." (18)  The  idea  of  governmental  old-age  pensions, 
on  the  contrary,  has  always  been  popular  in  certain  anti- 
Socialist  circles  and  is  entirely  in  accord  with  any  intelligent 
system  of  purely  capitalistic  collectivism.  Its  common 
adoption  by  progressive  capitalists  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  they  consider  it  as  being  either  directly  or  indirectly 
conducive  to  their  own  interests.  It  is  unnecessary  to  assume 
that  they  adopt  it  from  fear  of  Socialism.  Few  if  any  capital- 
ists consider  the  overthrow  of  capitalism  as  imminent,  or 
feel  that  Socialism  is  likely  for  many  years  to  furnish  them 
with  a  really  acute  political  problem.  A  combination  of  Re- 
publicans and  Democrats,  for  example,  with  a  full  vote,  would 
easily  overwhelm  Mr.  Berger,  the  sole  Socialist  Congressman 


"REFORMISM"  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       205 

in  his  own  Congressional  district.  If  present  political  suc- 
cesses continue,  it  will  still  take  years  for  Socialism  to  send  a 
score  of  representatives  to  Congress,  and  when  it  does  do  so, 
they  will  be  as  impotent  as  ever  to  overthrow  the  capitalist 
order. 

For  any  independent  representative  without  political 
power  or  responsibility  to  propose  radical  reforms  in  advance 
of  the  larger  parties  is  a  very  simple  matter.  Statesmen  with 
actual  power  cannot  afford  to  take  up  such  reforms  until  the 
time  is  politically  ripe  for  their  practical  consideration. 
When  such  a  measure  is  passed,  for  the  individual  or  group 
that  first  proposed  it  to  claim  the  credit  for  the  change  would 
be  absurd.  These  reforms,  when  conditions  have  suitably 
evolved,  become  the  order  of  the  day,  and  are  urged  by  all 
or  nearly  all  the  forces  of  the  time.  The  radical  British  old- 
age  pension  bill,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  passed  almost 
unanimously,  although  in  the  Parliament  that  passed  it  there 
were  only  about  40  Socialist  or  semi-Socialist  representatives 
out  of  a  total  of  670  members. 

What,  then,  could  be  more  fatuous  than  such  a  view  as  the 
following,  expressed  recently  by  a  well-known  Socialist :  — 

"Do  you  not  think  that  the  whole  country  should  be  ap- 
prised that  this  (Berger's  Old-age  Pension  bill)  is  a  Socialist 
measure,  introduced  by  a  Socialist  Representative,  and 
backed  by  the  Socialist  Party  —  before  the  Republicans  and 
Democrats  realize  the  advisability  of  stealing  our  thunder. 
In  England  the  working-class  political  movement  is  stagnant 
because  the  Liberal  Party  has  out-generaled  the  Socialists 
by  voluntarily  enacting  great  social  reforms."  (19) 

In  his  anxiety  to  prepare  a  bill  that  capitalist  legislators 
would  indorse  and  pass  in  the  near  future,  Mr.  Berger 
aroused  great  criticism  within  the  Party.  The  New  York 
Volkszeitung  pointed  out  that  in  limiting  the  benefit  of  the  law 
to  those  who  had  been  naturalized  citizens  of  the  United 
States  for  sixteen  years,  he  was  requiring  a  residence  of 
twenty-one  years  in  this  country,  a  provision  which  involved 
an  excessively  heavy  discrimination  against  a  very  large 
proportion  of  our  foreign-born  workers.  Mr.  Berger's  proj- 
ect, moreover,  demanded  that  those  convicted  of  felonies 
should  also  be  excluded.  Socialists,  as  is  well  known,  have 
always  asserted  that  the  larger  part  of  crimes  and  criminals 
were  due  to  injustices  of  the  existing  social  order,  for  which  the 
"criminals"  were  in  no  sense  to  blame.  Mr.  Berger's  secre- 


206  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

tary,  Mr.  W.  J.  Ghent,  vigorously  defended  this  clause,  on 
the  typical  "State  Socialist"  ground  that  the  future  Society 
would  deal  more  severely  with  criminals  than  the  present 
one. 

Mr.  Berger's  bill  was  objected  to  by  New  York  Socialists 
on  the  ground  that  the  old  parties  could  be  expected  to  give 
a  more  liberal  bill  in  the  near  future,  and  that  it  would  then 
be  difficult  to  explain  the  narrower  Socialist  position.  Mr. 
Ghent  answered  that  nowhere  had  such  a  liberal  measure  been 
enacted.  To  this  the  Volkszeitung  remarked  that  there  is 
a  tremendous  difference  between  a  bill  that  owes  its  origin 
to  a  capitalist  government  and  one  that  comes  from  a  Socialist 
representative  of  the  working  class:  "The  former  sets  up  a 
minimum  while  the  latter  must  demand  the  maximum." 
Finally,  the  New  York  Local  of  the  Socialist  Party  resolved : 
"That  we  request  the  National  Executive  Committee  to 
resolve  that  Comrade  Berger  shall,  before  introducing  any 
bill,  submit  it  to  secure  its  approval  by  the  National  Execu- 
tive Committee." 

Mr.  Berger's  maiden  speech  also  summed  up  excellently 
the  general  policy  of  Socialist  "reformism." 

"When  the  white  man  is  sick  or  when  he  dies,"  he  said, 
"the  employer  usually  loses  nothing."  Mr.  Berger  does  not 
understand  that,  in  modern  countries,  employers  as  a  class 
are  seeing  that  the  laborers  as  a  class  are,  after  all,  their  chief 
asset :  and  are  therefore  organizing  to  care  for  them  through 
governmental  action,  as  working  animals,  even  more  sys- 
tematically and  infinitely  more  scientifically  than  slaves  were 
ever  cared  for.  He  is  exhausting  his  efforts  to  persuade,  or 
perhaps  he  would  say  to  compel,  the  government  to  the  very 
action  that  the  interests  of  its  capitalist  masters  most 
strongly  demand. 

Curiously  enough,  Mr.  Berger  expressed  the  "reformist," 
the  revolutionary,  and  the  State  capitalist  principle  in  this 
same  speech,  'without  being  in  the  least  troubled  with  the 
contradictions.  He  spoke  of  industrial  crises,  irregular 
employment  and  unemployment  as  if  they  were  permanent 
features  of  capitalism :  — 

"These  new  inventions,  machines,  improvements,  and  labor  de- 
vices, displace  human  labor  and  steadily  increase  the  army  of  un- 
employed, who,  starved  and  frantic,  are  ever  ready  to  take  the  places 
of  those  who  have  work,  thereby  still  further  depressing  the  labor 
market." 


"REFORMISM"  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       207 

The  collectivist  capitalists  have  already  set  themselves 
aggressively  to  work  to  abolish  unemployment,  to  make 
employment  regular,  to  connect  the  worker  that  needs  a 
job  with  the  job  that  needs  a  worker,  and  to  put  an  end  to 
industrial  crises,  and  with  every  promise  of  success. 

Immediately  afterward,  Mr.  Berger  made  a  correct  state- 
ment of  the  Socialist  position :  — 

"The  average  of  wages,  the  certainty  of  employment,  the  social 
privileges,  and  the  independence  of  the  wage-earning  and  agricultural 
population,  when  compared  with  the  increase  of  wealth  and  social  pro- 
duction, are  steadily  and  rapidly  decreasing." 

The  Socialist  indictment  is  not  that  unemployment,  irregu- 
larity of  employment,  or  any  other  social  evil  is  increasing 
absolutely,  or  that  it  is  beyond  the  reach  of  capitalist  reform ; 
but  that  the  share  of  the  constantly  increasing  total  of  wealth 
and  prosperity  that  goes  to  the  laborers  is  constantly  growing 
less. 

A  few  minutes  later  in  the  same  speech,  Mr.  Berger  in- 
dorsed pure  "State  Socialism."  Legislation,  he  said,  that 
does  not  tend  to  an  increased  measure  of  control  on  the  part 
of  society  as  a  whole  is  not  in  line  with  the  trend  of  economic 
evolution  and  cannot  last.  This  formulates  capitalistic 
collectivism  with  absolute  distinctness.  What  it  demands 
is  not  a  new  order,  but  more  order.  What  it  opposes  is  not 
so  much  the  rule  of  capitalists,  as  the  disorder  of  capitalism 
—  which  capitalists  themselves  are  effectively  remedying. 
It  is  not  only  our  present  government  that  is  capitalistic 
but  our  present  society,  also.  Increased  control  over  industry, 
over  legislation  and  government,  on  the  part  of  the  present 
society  as  a  whole,  would  be  but  a  step  toward  the  achieve- 
ment of  State  capitalism.  The  purpose  of  Socialism  is  to 
overcome  and  eliminate  the  power  of  capitalism  whether  in 
society  or  in  government,  and  not  to  establish  it  more  firmly. 
Increased  control  by  society  as  a  whole,  far  from  being  a 
Socialist  principle,  is  not  necessarily  even  radical  or  pro- 
gressive. In  fact  the  most  far-seeing  conservatives  to-day 
demand  it,  for  "control  by  society  as  a  whole"  means,  for  the 
present,  control  by  society  as  it  is. 

Finally,  in  reply  to  questions  asked  on  the  floor  of  Congress 
after  this  same  speech,  Mr.  Berger  said :  "Any  interference 
by  the  government  with  the  rights  of  private  property  is 
Socialistic  in  tendency,"  that  is,  that  every  step  in  collectiv- 


208  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

ism  is  a  step  in  Sodalism.  Yet  this  demand  for  the  restric- 
tion of  the  rights  of  private  property  by  a  conservative  gov- 
ernment is  the  identical  principle  advocated  by  progressives 
who  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  Socialism.  (See  Part  I, 
Chapter  III.) 

Mr.  Berger  and  the  large  minority  of  Socialist  Party 
members  that  vote  with  him  in  Party  Congresses  and  refer- 
endums  may  be  said  to  represent  a  combination  of  trade 
unionism  of  the  conservative  kind,  and  "State  Socialism," 
together  with  opportunistic  methods  more  or  less  in  contra- 
diction with  the  usual  tactics  of  the  international  movement. 
These  methods  and  the  indiscriminate  support  of  conservative 
unionism  have  been  repeatedly  rejected  by  the  Socialists 
in  this  country.  But  very  many  Socialists  who  repudiate 
all  compromise  and  will  have  nothing  of  Australian  or  British 
Labor  Party  tactics  in  the  United  States  are  in  entire  accord 
with  Mr.  Berger  on  "State  Socialist"  reform.  It  is  thus  a 
modified  form  of  "State  Socialism"  and  not  Laborism  that 
now  confronts  the  organization  and  creates  its  greatest 
problem. 

Mr.  Charles  Edward  Russell,  for  example,  says  that  "we 
are  not  striving  for  ourselves  alone,  but  for  our  children, 
that  "our  aim  is  not  merely  for  one  country,  but  for  all  the 
world,"  that  "we  stand  here  immutably  resolved  against  the 
whole  of  capitalism."  (20)  And  Mr.  Russell  will  hear  noth- 
ing either  of  compromise  or  of  a  Labor  Party.  But  when  we 
come  to  examine  the  only  question  of  practical  moment,  how 
his  ideal  is  to  be  applied,  we  are  astounded  to  read  that, 
"every  time  a  government  acquires  a  railroad,  it  practices 
Socialism."  (21) 

Mr.  Russell  points  out  that  "almost  all  the  railroads 
in  the  world,  outside  of  the  United  States,  are  now 
owned  by  government,"  yet  in  his  latest  book,  "Business," 
he  refers  to  Prussia,  Japan,  Mexico  [under  Diaz],  and  other 
countries  as  having  boldly  purchased  railways  and  coal  mines 
when  they  desired  them  for  the  common  good.  (22)  Mr.  Rus- 
sell here  seems  to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  history  of  Russia, 
Japan,  Mexico,  and  Prussia  has  shown  that  there  is  an  inter- 
mediate stage  between  our  status  and  government  "for  the 
Common  Good,"  a  stage  during  which  the  capitalist  class, 
having  gained  a  more  firm  control  over  government  than  ever, 
intrusts  it  (with  the  opposition  of  but  a  few  of  the  largest  cap- 
italists) with  some  of  the  most  important  business  functions. 


"REFORMISM"   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       209 

Yet  Mr.  Russell  himself  admits,  by  implication,  that  gov- 
ernment by  Business  "properly  informed  and  broadly  enlight- 
ened" might  continue  for  a  considerable  period,  and  there- 
fore directs  his  shafts  largely  against  Business  Government 
"as  at  present  conducted,"  and  he  realizes  fully  that  the  most 
needed  reforms,  even  when  they  directly  benefit  the  working- 
men,  are  equally  or  still  more  to  the  benefit  of  Business :  — 

"In  the  first  place,  if  the  masses  of  people  become  too  much  im- 
poverished, the  national  stamina  is  destroyed,  which  would  be  ex- 
ceedingly bad  for  Business  in  case  Business  should  plunge  us  into  war. 
In  the  second  place,  since  poverty  produces  a  steady  decline  in 
physical  and  mental  capacity,  if  it  goes  too  far,  there  is  a  lack  of 
hands  to  do  the  work  of  Business  and  a  lack  of  healthy  stomachs 
to  consume  some  of  its  most  important  products. 

"  For  these  reasons,  a  Government  for  Profits,  like  ours,  incurs 
certain  deadly  perils,  unless  it  be  properly  informed  and  broadly 
enlightened. 

"  Something  of  the  truth  of  this  has  already  been  perceived  by  the 
astute  gentlemen  that  steer  the  fortunes  of  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany, a  concern  that  in  many  respects  may  be  considered  the  fore- 
most present  type  of  Business  in  Government.  One  of  the  rules  of 
the  Standard  Oil  Company  is  to  pay  good  wages  to  its  employees, 
and  to  see  that  they  are  comfortable  and  contented.  As  a  result  of 
this  policy  the  Standard  Oil  Company  is  seldom  bothered  with  strikes, 
and  most  of  its  workers  have  no  connection  with  labor  unions,  do  not 
listen  to  muck-rakers  and  other  vile  breeders  of  social  discontent, 
and  are  quite  satisfied  with  their  little  round  of  duties  and  their 
secure  prospects  in  life.  .  .  . 

"  Unless  Business  recognizes  quite  fully  the  wisdom  of  similar  ar- 
rangements for  its  employees,  Business  Government  (as  at  present 
conducted)  will  in  the  end  fall  of  its  own  weight."  (23)  (My  italics.) 

Surely  nobody  has  given  more  convincing  arguments  than 
Mr.  Russell  himself  why  Business  Government  should  go  in 
for  government  ownership  and  measures  to  increase  the  effi- 
ciency of  labor.  Surely  no  further  reasons  should  be  needed 
to  prove  that  when  a  government  purchases  a  railroad  to- 
day, it  does  not  practice  Socialism.  Yet  the  reverse  is  sus- 
tained by  a  growing  number  of  members  of  the  Socialist 
Party  (though  not  by  a  growing  proportion  of  the  Party), 
which  indicates  that  the  Socialism  of  Bebel,  Liebknecht, 
Kautsky,  Guesde,  Lafargue,  and  the  International  Socialist 
Congresses  is  at  present  by  no  means  as  firmly  rooted  in 
this  country  as  it  is  on  the  Continent  of  Europe. 


CHAPTER  V 
REFORM  BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION 

AN  American  Socialist  author  expresses  the  opinion  of 
many  Socialists  when  he  says  of  the  movement :  "  It  strives 
by  all  efforts  in  its  power  to  increase  its  vote  at  the  ballot 
box.  It  believes  that  by  this  increase  the  attainment  of  its 
goal  is  brought  ever  nearer,  and  also  that  the  menace  of  this 
increasing  vote  induces  the  capitalist  class  to  grant  concessions 
in  the  hope  of  preventing  further  increases.  It  criticizes  non- 
Socialist  efforts  at  reform  as  comparatively  barren  of  positive 
benefit  and  as  tending,  on  the  whole,  to  insure  the  dominance 
of  the  capitalist  class  and  to  continue  the  grave  social  evils 
now  prevalent."  (1)  (My  italics.) 

Because  non-Socialist  reforms  tend  to  prolong  the  domina- 
tion of  the  capitalist  class,  which  no  Socialist  doubts,  it  is 
asserted  that  they  are  also  comparatively  barren  of  positive 
benefit.  And  if,  from  time  to  time  and  in  contradiction 
to  this  view,  changes  are  bought  about  by  non-Socialist  gov- 
ernments which  undeniably  do  very  much  improve  the  condi- 
tion of  the  working  people,  it  is  reasoned  that  this  was  done 
by  the  menace  either  of  a  Socialist  revolution  or  of  a  Socialist 
electoral  majority. 

"A  Socialist  reform  must  be  in  the  nature  of  a  working-class 
conquest,"  says  Mr.  Hillquit  in  his  "Socialism  in  Theory 
and  Practice"  —  expressing  this  very  widespread  Socialist 
opinion.  He  says  that  reforms  inaugurated  by  small  farmers, 
manufacturers,  or  traders,  cause  an  "arrest  of  development 
or  even  a  return  to  conditions  of  past  ages,  while  the  reforms 
of  the  more  educated  classes  if  less  reactionary  are  not  of  a 
more  efficient  type." 

"The  task  of  developing  and  extending  factory  legislation 
falls  entirely  on  the  organized  workmen,"  according  to  this 
view,  because  the  dominant  classes  have  no  interest  in  devel- 
oping it,  while  the  evils  of  the  slums  and  of  the  employment 
of  women  and  children  in  industry  can  be  cured  only  by 
Socialism.  Such  reforms  as  can  be  obtained  in  this  direction, 

210 


REFORM  BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION         211 

though  they  are  not  considered  by  Mr.  Hillquit  "as  the  begin- 
nings or  installments  of  a  Socialist  system, "  he  holds  are  to 
be  obtained  only  with  Socialist  aid.  In  other  words,  while 
capitalism  is  not  altogether  unable  or  unwilling  to  benefit  the 
working  people,  it  can  do  little,  and  even  this  little  is  due 
to  the  presence  of  the  Socialists. 

Another  example  of  the  "reformist's"  view  may  be  seen 
in  the  editorials  of  Mr.  Berger,  in  the  Social-Democratic 
Herald,  of  Milwaukee,  where  he  says  that  the  Social-Demo- 
crats never  fail  to  declare  that  with  all  the  social  reforms,  good 
and  worthy  of  support  as  they  may  be,  conditions  cannot 
be  permanently  improved.  That  is  to  say,  present-day  reforms 
are  not  only  of  secondary  importance,  but  that  they  are  of 
merely  temporary  effect. 

"There  is  nothing  more  to  hope  from  the  property-holding 
classes." 

"The  bourgeois  reformers  are  constantly  getting  less 
progressive  and  allying  themselves  more  and  more  with  the 
reactionaries." 

"It  is  impossible  that  the  capitalists  should  accomplish 
any  important  reform." 

"With  all  social  reform,  short  of  Socialism  itself,  condi- 
tions cannot  be  permanently  improved." 

These  and  many  similar  expressions  are  either  quotations 
from  well-known  Socialist  authors  or  phrases  in  common  use. 
Many  French  and  German  Socialists  have  even  called  the 
whole  "State  Socialist"  program  "social-demagogy."  As 
none  of  the  reforms  proposed  by  the  capitalists  are  sufficient 
to  balance  the  counteracting  forces  and  to  carry  society 
along  their  direction,  Socialists  sometimes  mistakenly  feel  that 
nothing  whatever  of  benefit  can  come  to  the  workers  from  cap- 
italist government.  As  the  capitalists'  reforms  all  tend  "to 
insure  the  dominance  of  the  capitalist  class,"  it  is  denied 
that  they  can  cure  any  of  the  grave  social  evils  now  prevalent, 
and  it  is  even  asserted  that  they  are  reactionary. 

"For  how  many  years  have  we  been  telling  the  working- 
man,  especially  the  trade  unionist,"  wrote  the  late  Benjamin 
Hanford,  on  two  successive  occasions  Socialist  candidate  for 
Vice  President  of  the  United  States  "that  it  was  folly  for  him 
to  beg  in  the  halls  of  a  capitalist  legislature  and  a  capitalist 
Congress?  Did  we  mean  what  we  said?  I  did,  for  one. 
...  I  not  only  believed  it  —  I  proved  it."  Obviously 
there  are  many  political  measures,  just  as  there  are  many  im- 


212  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

provements  in  industry  and  industrial  organization,  that  may 
be  beneficial  to  the  workers  as  well  as  the  capitalists,  but  it 
is  also  clear  that  such  changes  will  in  most  instances  be 
brought  about  by  the  capitalists  themselves.  On  the  other 
hand,  even  where  they  have  a  group  of  independent  legislators 
of  their  own,  however  large  a  minority  it  may  form,  the 
Socialists  can  expect  no  concessions  of  political  or  economic 
power  until  social  revolution  is  at  hand. 

The  municipal  platform  adopted  by  the  Socialist  Party 
in  New  York  City  in  1909  also  appealed  to  workingmen  not 
to  be  deluded  into  the  belief  "that  the  capitalists  will  permit 
any  measures  of  real  benefit  to  the  working  class  to  be  carried 
into  effect  by  the  municipality  so  long  as  they  remain  in  undis- 
puted control  of  the  State  and  federal  government  and 
especially  of  the  judiciary."  This  statement  is  slightly 
inaccurate.  The  capitalists  will  allow  the  enactment  of 
measures  that  benefit  the  working  class,  provided  those  meas- 
ures do  not  involve  loss  to  the  capitalist  class.  Thus  sanita- 
tion and  education  are  of  real  benefit  to  the  workers,  but, 
temporarily  at  least,  they  benefit  the  capitalist  class  still 
more,  by  rendering  the  workers  more  efficient  as  wealth  pro- 
ducers. 

The  Socialist  platforms  of  the  various  countries  all  recog- 
nize, to  use  the  language  of  that  of  the  United  States,  that  all 
the  reforms  indorsed  by  the  Socialists  "are  but  a  prepara- 
tion of  the  workers  to  seize  the  whole  power  of  government,  in 
order  that  they  may  thereby  lay  hold  of  the  whole  system 
of  industry  and  thus  come  to  their  rightful  inheritance." 
(Italics  are  mine.)  This  might  be  interpreted  to  mean  that 
through  such  reforms  the  Socialists  are  gaining  control  over 
parts  of  industry  and  government.  Marx  took  the  opposite 
view;  "the  first  step  in  the  revolution  by  the  working  class  is 
to  raise  the  proletariat  to  the  position  of  ruling  power.  .  .  ." 
He  left  open  no  possibility  of  saying  that  the  Socialists 
thought  that  without  overthrowing  capitalism  they  could 
seize  a  part  of  the  powers  of  government  (though  they 
were  already  electing  legislative  minorities  and  subordinate 
officials  in  his  day). 

Sometimes  there  are  still  more  ambiguous  expressions  in 
Socialist  platforms  which  even  make  it  possible  for  social 
reformers  who  have  joined  the  movement  to  confess  publicly 
that  they  use  it  exclusively  for  reform  purposes,  and  still 
to  claim  that  they  are  Socialists  (see  Professor  Clark's  ad- 


REFORM  BY  MENACE   OF   REVOLUTION         213 

vice  in  the  following  chapter).  For  example,  instead  of 
heading  such  proposals  as  the  nationalization  of  the  rail- 
roads and  "trusts"  and  the  State  appropriation  of  ground 
rent  "reforms  indorsed  by  Socialists,"  they  have  called  such 
reforms,  perhaps  inadvertently,  "Immediate  Demands" 
and  the  American  platform  has  referred  to  them  as  measures 
of  relief  which  "we  may  be  able  to  force  from  capitalism." 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Marx  and  his  chief  followers, 
on  the  contrary,  saw  that  such  reforms  would  come  from  the 
capitalists  without  the  necessity  of  any  Socialist  force  or 
demand  —  though  this  pressure  might  hasten  their  coming 
(see  Part  I,  Chapter  VIII).  They  are  viewed  by  him  and  an 
increasing  number  of  Socialists  not  as  concessions  to  Socialism 
forced  from  the  capitalists,  but  as  developments  of  capitalism 
desired  by  the  more  progressive  capitalists  and  Socialists  alike, 
but  especially  by  the  Socialists  owing  to  their  desire  that  State 
capitalism  shall  develop  as  rapidly  as  possible  —  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  Socialism,  —  and  to  the  fact  that  the  working 
people  suffer  more  than  the  capitalists  at  any  delay  in  the 
establishment  even  of  this  transitional  state. 

The  platform  of  the  American  Party  just  quoted  classes 
such  reforms  as  government  relief  for  the  unemployed,  gov- 
ernment loans  for  public  work,  and  collective  ownership  of 
the  railways  and  trusts,  as  measures  it  may  be  able  "to  force 
from  capitalism,"  as  "a  preparation  of  the  workers  to  seize 
the  whole  power  of  government."  But  if  the  capitalists 
do  enact  such  reforms  as  these,  not  on  the  independent 
grounds  I  have  indicated,  but  out  of  fear  of  Socialism,  as  is 
here  predicted,  why  should  not  the  process  of  coercing  capital- 
ism continue  indefinitely  until  gradually  all  power  is  taken 
away  from  them  ?  Why  should  there  be  any  special  need  to 
"seize"  the  whole  power,  if  the  capitalists  can  be  coerced 
even  now,  while  the  government  is  still  largely  theirs  ? 

Some  "reformists"  do  not  hesitate  to  answer  frankly  that 
there  is  indeed  no  ground  for  expecting  any  revolutionary 
crisis.  Mr.  John  Spargo  feels  that  reforms  "will  prove  in 
their  totality  to  be  the  Revolution  itself,"  and  that  if  the 
Socialists  keep  in  sight  this  whole  body  of  reforms,  which  he 
calls  the  Revolution,  "as  the  objective  of  every  Reform,"  this 
will  sufficiently  distinguish  them  from  non-Socialist  reformers. 
Mr.  Morris  Hillquit  also  speaks  for  many  other  influential 
Socialists  when  he  insists  that  the  Socialists  differ  from  other 
Parties  chiefly  in  that  they  alone  "see  the  clear  connection 


214  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS' 

and  necessary  interdependence"  between  the  various  social 
evils.  That  there  is  no  ground  for  any  such  assertion  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  social  evils  discussed  in  the  capital- 
ist press,  and  all  the  remedies  which  have  any  practical 
chance  of  enactment,  as  is  now  generally  perceived,  are  due 
to  extreme  poverty,  the  lack  of  order  in  industry,  and  the  need 
of  government  regulations,  guided  by  a  desire  to  promote 
"efficiency,"  and  to  perfect  the  capitalist  system.  Non- 
Socialist  reformers  have  already  made  long  strides  toward 
improving  the  worst  forms  of  poverty,  without  taking  the 
slightest  step  towards  social  democracy.  These  reforms 
are  being  introduced  more  and  more  rapidly  and  are  not 
likely  to  be  checked  until  what  we  now  know  as  poverty  and 
its  accompanying  evils  are  practically  abolished  by  the  capital- 
ist class  while  promoting  their  own  comfort  and  security.  This, 
for  example,  is,  as  I  have  shown,  the  outspoken  purpose  of 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  his  capitalistic  supporters  in  England. 
Similarly,  it  is  the  outspoken  purpose  of  the  promoters  of 
the  present  "efficiency"  movement  among  the  business  men 
of  America.  However  the  material  conditions  of  the  work- 
ing classes  may  be  bettered  by  such  means,  their  personal 
liberty  and  political  power  may  be  so  much  curtailed  in 
the  process  as  to  make  further  progress  by  their  own  associ- 
ated efforts  more  difficult  under  "State  Socialism"  than 
it  is  to-day. 

The  State  platform  of  the  Socialist  Party  of  New  York  in 
1910,  while  seemingly  self-contradictory  in  certain  of  its 
phrases,  makes  the  sharpest  distinctions  between  Socialism 
and  "State  Socialist"  reform.  Its  criticism  of  reform  parties 
is  on  the  whole  so  vigorous  and  its  insistence  on  class  struggle 
tactics  so  strong  as  to  make  it  clear  that  there  is  no  expecta- 
tion of  reaching  Socialism  through  reforms  granted,  from 
whatever  motive,  by  a  non-Socialist  majority.  I  have 
italicized  some  significant  phrases  :  — 

"The  two  dominant  political  parties  pretend  to  stand  for  all  the 
people;  the  so-called  reform  parties  claim  to  speak  for  the  good 
people ;  the  Socialist  party  frankly  acknowledges  that  it  is  concerned 
chiefly  with  the  working  people.  .  .  . 

"The  great  fortunes  of  the  wealthy  come  from  the  spoliation  of 
the  poor.  Large  profits  for  the  manufacturers  mean  starvation 
wages  for  the  workers ;  the  princely  revenues  of  the  landlords  are 
derived  from  excessive  rents  of  the  tenants,  and  the  billions  of  watered 
stock  and  bonds  crying  for  dividends  and  interest  are  a  perpetual 


REFORM   BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION        215 

mortgage  upon  the  work  and  lives  of  the  people  of  all  generations 
to  come.  .  .  . 

"No  political  party  can  honestly  serve  all  the  people  of  the  state  — 
those  who  prey  and  those  who  toil ;  those  who  rob  and  those  who  are 
robbed.  The  parties  as  well  as  the  voters  of  this  state  must  take  their 
stand  in  the  conflict  of  interests  of  the  different  classes  of  society  — 
they  must  choose  between  the  workers  and  their  despoilers. 

"The  Republican  and  Democratic  Parties  alike  always  have  been 
the  tools  of  the  dominating  classes.  They  have  been  managed,  sup- 
ported, and  financed  by  the  money  powers  of  the  State,  and  in  turn 
they  have  conducted  the  legislatures,  courts,  and  executive  offices 
of  the  State  as  accessories  to  the  business  interests  of  those  classes. 

"These  vices  of  our  government  are  not  accidental,  but  are  deeply 
and  firmly  rooted  in  our  industrial  system.  To  maintain  its  su- 
premacy in  this  conflict  the  dominating  class  must  strive  to  control 
our  government  and  politics,  and  must  influence  and  corrupt  our 
public  officials. 

"The  two  old  parties  as  well  as  the  so-called  reform  parties  of  the 
middle  classes,  which  spring  up  in  New  York  politics  from  time  to 
time,  all  stand  for  the  continuance  of  that  system,  hence  they  are 
bound  to  perpetuate  and  to  aggravate  its  inevitable  evils.  .  .  ." 

The  New  York  Party  had  immediately  before  it  the  ex- 
ample of  Mr.  Hearst,  who  has  gone  as  far  as  the  radicals  of 
the  old  parties  in  Wisconsin,  or  Kansas,  Oklahoma,  California, 
or  Oregon  in  verbally  indorsing  radical  reform  measures, 
and  also  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  occasionally  has  gone  almost 
as  far.  Day  after  day  the  Hearst  papers  had  sent  out  to 
their  millions  of  readers  editorials  which  contain  every  ele- 
ment of  Socialism  except  its  essence,  the  class  struggle. 
The  New  York  Party,  like  many  in  other  Socialist  organiza- 
tions, found  itself  compelled  by  circumstances  to  take  a  revolu- 
tionary stand. 

For  when  opportunistic  reformers  opposed  to  the  Socialist 
movement  go  as  far  as  the  Hearst  papers  in  indorsing  "State 
Socialist"  reforms,  what  hope  would  there  be  for  Socialists 
to  gain  the  public  ear  if  they  went  scarcely  farther,  either  as 
regards  the  practical  measures  they  propose  or  the  phrases 
they  employ?  If  the  "reformist"  Socialists  answer  that 
their  ultimate  aim  is  to  go  farther,  may  they  not  be  asked 
what  difference  this  makes  in  present-day  affairs?  And  if 
they  answer  that  certain  reforms  must  be  forced  through  by 
Socialist  threats,  political  or  revolutionary,  will  they  not  be 
told,  first  that  it  can  be  shown  that  the  whole  "State  Social- 
istic "  reform  program,  if  costly  to  many  individual  capitalists, 


216  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

promises  to  prove  ultimately  profitable  to  the  capitalist  class, 
and  second,  that  it  is  being  carried  out  where  there  is  no 
present  menace  either  of  a  Socialist  revolution  or  even  of  a 
more  or  less  Socialistic  political  majority. 

But  the  position  of  the  politically  ambitious  among  so- 
called  "orthodox"  Socialists  (I  do  not  refer  to  personal  or 
individual,  but  only  to  partisan  ambition)  is  often  very  similar 
at  the  bottom  to  that  of  the  "reformists";  while  the  latter 
contend  that  capitalism  can  grant  few  if  any  reforms  of  any 
great  benefit  to  the  working  people  without  Socialist  aid,  some 
of  the  orthodox  lay  equal  weight  on  Socialist  agitation  for 
these  same  reforms,  on  the  ground  that  they  cannot  be 
accomplished  by  collaborating  with  capitalist  reformers  at 
all,  but  solely  through  the  Socialist  Party. 

"The  revolutionary  Marxists,"  says  the  French  Socialist, 
Rappaport,  "  test  the  gifts  of  capitalistic  reform  through  its 
motives.  And  they  discover  that  these  motives  are  not 
crystal  clear.  The  reformistic  patchwork  is  meant  to  prop 
up  and  make  firmer  the  rotten  capitalistic  building.  They 
test  capitalistic  reforms,  moreover,  by  the  means  which  are 
necessary  for  their  accomplishment.  These  means  are  either 
altogether  lacking  or  insufficient,  and  in  any  case  they  flow 
in  overwhelming  proportion  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  ex- 
ploited classes."  (2) 

We  need  not  agree  with  Rappaport  that  capitalistic  re- 
forms bring  no  possible  benefit  to  labor,  or  that  the  capital- 
istic building  is  rotten  and  about  to  fall  to  pieces.  May  it 
not  be  that  it  is  strong  and  getting  stronger?  May  it  not 
be  that  the  control  over  the  whole  building,  far  from  passing 
into  Socialist  hands,  is  removed  farther  and  farther  from  their 
reach,  so  that  the  promise  of  obtaining,  not  reforms  of  more 
or  less  importance,  but  a  fair  and  satisfactory  share  of  progress 
without  conquering  capitalism  is  growing  less  ? 

Thus  many  orthodox  and  revolutionary  Socialists  even, 
to  say  nothing  of  "reformists,"  become  mere  political  parti- 
sans, make  almost  instinctive  efforts  to  credit  all  political 
progress  to  the  Socialist  Parties,  contradict  their  own  revo- 
lutionary principles.  All  reforms  that  happen  to  be  of  any 
benefit  to  labor,  they  claim,  are  due  to  the  pressure  of  the 
working  classes  within  Parliaments  or  outside  of  them ;  which 
amounts  to  conceding  that  the  Socialists  are  already  sharing 
in  the  power  of  government  or  industry,  a  proposition  that 
the  revolutionaries  always  most  strenuously  deny.  For  if 


REFORM  BY  MENACE   OF  REVOLUTION         217 

Socialists  are  practically  sharing  in  government  and  industry 
to-day,  the  orthodox  and  revolutionists  will  have  difficulty 
in  meeting  the  argument  of  the  "reformists"  that  it  is  only 
necessary  to  continue  the  present  pressure  in  order  to  obtain 
more  and  more,  without  any  serious  conflicts,  until  all  Social- 
ism is  gradually  accomplished. 

Kautsky  makes  much  of  the  capitalists'  present  fear  of 
the  working  classes,  though  in  his  opinion  this  fear  makes 
not  only  for  "concessions"  but  also  for  reactions,  as  in  the 
world-wide  revival  of  imperialism.  Foreign  conquests,  he 
believes,  are  the  only  alternative  the  governing  classes  are 
able  to  offer  to  the  glowing  promises  of  the  Socialists.  It  is 
for  this  reason,  he  believes,  that  the  capitalists  are  relying 
more  and  more  on  imperialism,  even  though  they  know 
that  the  conquest  of  colonies  is  no  longer  possible  to  the  extent 
it  was  before,  and  realize  that  the  cost  of  maintaining  arma- 
ments is  rapidly  becoming  greater  than  colonial  profits. 
But  this  also  is  to  underestimate  the  resources  of  capitalism 
and  its  capacity  for  a  certain  form  of  progress.  If  the  capital- 
ists are  not  to  be  forced  to  concessions,  neither  are  they  to 
be  forced,  unless  in  a  very  great  crisis,  to  reactionary  meas- 
ures that  in  themselves  bring  no  profit.  The  progressive 
"State  Socialist"  program  is,  as  a  rule,  a  far  more  promising 
road  to  popularity  from  their  standpoint  than  is  reactionary 
imperialism. 

In  Kautsky's  view  the  bourgeoisie  is  driven  by  the  fear 
of  Socialism,  in  a  country  like  Germany  to  reaction,  and  in 
one  like  England  to  attempt  reform.  In  neither  case  will  it 
actually  proceed  to  reforms  of  any  considerable  benefit  to 
labor,  apparently  because  Kautsky  believes  that  all  such 
reforms  would  inevitably  strengthen  labor  relatively  to  cap- 
ital, and  will  therefore  not  be  allowed.  Similarly,  he  feels 
that  the  capitalists  will  refuse  all  concessions  to  political 
democracy  (on  the  same  erroneous  supposition,  that  they  will 
inevitably  aid  labor  more  than  capital). 

For  example,  the  British  Liberals  have  abolished  the  veto 
of  the  House  of  Lords,  but  only  to  increase  the  power  of 
other  capitalists  against  landowners,  while  the  Conservatives 
have  proposed  the  Referendum,  but  only  to  protect  the  Lords. 
From  1884  to  1911  neither  Party  had  introduced  any  meas- 
ure to  democratize  the  House  of  Commons  and  so  to  in- 
crease the  representation  of  labor.  Kautsky  reminds  us 
of  the  plural  voting,  unequal  electoral  districts,  and  absence 


218  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

of  primary  and  secondary  elections.  This  he  believes  is 
evidence  that  the  capitalists  fear  to  extend  political  democ- 
racy farther.  They  even  fear  the  purely  economic  reforms 
that  are  being  enacted,  he  claims,  and  at  every  concession 
made  to  labor  desert  the  Liberals  to  join  the  Conservatives. 
Land  reform,  taxation  reform,  the  eight-hour  day,  are  being 
carried  out,  however.  But  when  it  comes  to  such  matters 
as  an  extended  suffrage,  the  capitalists  will  balk.  His  con- 
clusion is  that  if  economic  reforms  are  to  continue,  if,  for 
example,  the  unemployed  are  to  be  set  to  work  by  the  govern- 
ment, or  if  political  reforms  are  to  be  resumed,  the  Labourites 
have  to  free  themselves  from  the  tutelage  of  the  Liberal  Party. 
And  if  they  do  this,  they  can  play  so  effectively  on  capitalist 
fears  as  to  force  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  and  even  change 
the  British  Parliament  into  a  "tool  for  the  dictatorship  of 
the  working  class."  As  in  Germany,  all  political  advance 
of  value  to  labor  must  be  obtained  through  playing  on  capital- 
ist fears  —  only  in  England  the  process  may  be  more  gradual 
and  results  easier  to  obtain. 

"Every  extension  of  the  suffrage  to  the  working  class  must 
be  fought  for  to-day,"  says  Kautsky,  "and  it  is  only  thanks 
to  the  fear  of  the  working  class  that  it  is  not  abolished  where 
it  exists."  By  a  strange  coincidence  Kautsky  renewed  the 
prediction  that  the  capitalistic  Radical  government  of  Eng- 
land would  never  extend  the  ballot  except  when  forced  by 
Labor  only  a  few  days  before  Prime  Minister  Asquith  offi- 
cially, without  any  special  pressure  from  Labor,  pledged 
it  to  equal  and  universal  (manhood)  suffrage.  The  passage 
follows :  — 

"In  England  the  suffrage  is  still  limited  to-day,  and  capitalistic 
Radicalism,  in  spite  of  its  fine  phrases,  has  no  idea  of  enlarging  it. 
The  poorest  part  of  the  population  is  excluded  from  the  ballot. 
In  all  Great  Britain  (in  1906)  only  16.64  per  cent  possessed,  against 
22  per  cent  in  Germany.  If  England  had  the  German  Reichstag 
suffrage  law,  9,600,000  would  be  enfranchised,  instead  of  7,300,000, 
i.e.  2,300,000  more."  (3) 

Kautsky's  view  that  capitalists  cannot  bend  a  more  or  less 
democratic  government  to  their  purposes  and  therefore  will 
not  institute  such  a  government,  unless  forced  to  do  so,  is 
undoubtedly  based  on  German  conditions.  He  contends  that 
the  hope  of  the  German  bourgeois  lies  not  in  democracy  nor 
even  in  the  Reichstag,  but  in  the  strength  of  Prussia,  which 


REFORM  BY  MENACE   OF  REVOLUTION         219 

spells  Absolutism  and  Militarism.  He  admits  in  one  passage 
that  conditions  may  be  different  in  the  United  States,  Eng- 
land, and  British  colonies,  and  under  certain  circumstances  in 
France,  but  for  the  peoples  of  eastern  Europe  advanced 
measures  of  democracy  such  as  direct  legislation  belong  to 
"the  future  State,"  while  no  reforms  of  importance  to  the 
workers  are  to  be  secured  to-day  except  through  the  menace 
of  revolution.  It  would  be  perfectly  consistent  with  this, 
doubtlessly  correct,  view  of  present  German  conditions,  if 
Kautsky  said  that  after  Germany  has  overthrown  Absolutism 
and  Militarism,  progressive  capitalism  may  be  expected  to 
conquer  reactionary  capitalism  in  Germany  as  elsewhere,  and 
to  use  direct  legislation  and  other  democratic  measures  for 
the  purpose  of  increasing  profits,  with  certain  secondary,  inci- 
dental and  lesser  (but  by  no  means  unimportant)  benefits  to 
labor.  But  this  he  refuses  to  do.  He  readily  admits  that 
Germany  is  backward  politically,  but  as  she  is  advanced 
economically  he  apparently  allows  his  view  of  other  countries 
to-day  and  of  the  Germany  of  the  future  to  be  guided  by  the 
fact  that  the  large  capitalists  now  in  control  in  that  country 
(with  military  and  landlord  aid)  oppose  even  that  degree  of 
democracy  and  those  labor  reforms  which,  as  I  have  shown, 
would  result  in  an  increased  product  for  the  capitalist  class 
as  a  whole  (though  not  of  all  capitalists).  For  he  pictures 
the  reactionary  capitalists  in  continuous  control  in  the  future 
both  in  Germany  and  other  countries,  and  the  smaller  capi- 
talists as  important  between  these  and  the  masses  of  wage 
earners.  The  example  of  other  countries  (equally  developed 
economically  and  more  advanced  than  Germany  politically) 
suggests,  on  the  contrary,  a  growing  unity  of  large  and  small 
capital  through  the  action  of  the  state — and  as  a  result  the 
more  or  less  progressive  policy  I  have  outlined.  (See  Part  I.) 
But  Kautsky's  view  is  that  of  a  very  large  number  of  So- 
cialists, especially  in  Germany  and  neighboring  countries,  is 
having  an  enormous  influence,  and  deserves  careful  consider- 
ation. The  proletariat,  he  says,  is  not  afraid  of  the  most 
extreme  revolutionary  efforts  and  sacrifices  to  win  equal  suf- 
frage where,  as  in  Germany,  it  is  withheld.  "  And  every  at- 
tempt to  take  away  or  limit  the  German  laborer's  right  of 
voting  for  the  Reichstag  would  call  forth  the  danger  of  a 
fearful  catastrophe  to  the  Empire."  (5)  It  is  here  and  else- 
where suggested,  on  the  basis  of  German  experience,  that  this 
struggle  over  the  ballot  is  a  struggle  between  Capital  and  Labor. 


220  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

The  German  Reichstag  suffrage  was  made  equal  by  Bismarck 
in  1870  for  purely  capitalistic  reasons,  and  the  number  of  voters 
in  England  was  doubled  as  late  as  1884,  and  the  suffrage  is 
now  to  be  made  universal  through  similar  motives.  Yet  the 
present  domination  of  the  German  Liberals  and  those  of 
neighboring  countries  by  a  reactionary  bureaucratic,  military, 
and  landlord  class,  persuades  Kautsky  that  genuine  capital- 
istic Liberalism  everywhere  is  at  an  end. 

Yet  in  1910  the  German  Radicals  succeeded,  after  many 
years  of  vain  effort,  in  forming  out  of  their  three  parties  a 
united  organization,  the  Progressive  Peoples  Party  (Fortschritt- 
liche  Volkspartei).  The  program  adopted  included  almost 
every  progressive  reform,  and,  acting  in  accordance  with  its 
principles,  this  Party  quite  as  frequently  cooperates  with  the 
Socialists  on  its  left  as  with  the  National  Liberals  immediately 
on  its  right.  The  whole  recent  history  of  the  more  advanced 
countries,  including  even  Italy,  would  indicate  that  the  small 
capitalist  element,  which  largely  composes  this  party,  will 
obtain  the  balance  of  power  and  either  through  the  new  party 
or  through  the  Socialist  "  reformists  "  (the  latter  either  in  or 
out  of  the  parent  organization)  — or  through  both  together — 
will  before  many  years  bring  about  the  extension  of  the  suf- 
frage in  Prussia  (though  not  its  equalization),  the  equalization 
of  the  Reichstag  electoral  districts,  and  the  reduction  of  the 
tariff  that  supports  the  agrarian  landlords  and  large  capital- 
ists, put  a  halt  to  some  of  the  excesses  of  military  extrava- 
gance (though  not  to  militarism),  institute  a  government 
responsible  to  the  Reichstag,  provide  government  employ- 
ment for  the  unemployed,  and  later  take  up  the  other  indus- 
trial and  labor  reforms  of  capitalist  collectivism  as  inaugu- 
rated in  other  countries,  together  with  a  large  part  also  of  the 
radical  democratic  program.  There  is  no  reason  for  suppos- 
ing that  the  evolution  of  capitalism  is  or  will  be  basically 
different  in  Germany  from  that  of  other  countries.  (See 
Chapter  VII.) 

Though  he  regards  Socialism  as  the  sole  impelling  force 
for  reforms  of  benefit  to  labor,  Kautsky  definitely  acknowl- 
edges that  no  reforms  that  are  immediately  practicable  can 
be  regarded  as  the  exclusive  property  of  the  Socialist  Party :  — 

"But  this  is  certain,"  he  says,  "there  is  scarcely  a  single  practical 
demand  for  present-day  legislation,  that  is  peculiar  to  any  particular 
party.  Even  the  Social  Democracy  scarcely  shows  one  such  demand. 


REFORM  BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION        221 

That  through  which  it  differentiates  itself  from  other  parties  is  the 
totality  of  its  practical  demands  and  the  goals  towards  which  it 
points.  The  eight-hour  law,  for  example,  is  no  revolutionary 
demand.  ... 

"What  holds  together  political  parties,  especially  when  like  the 
Social  Democrats  they  have  great  historic  tasks  to  accomplish,  are 
their  final  goals;  not  their  momentary  demands,  not  their  views 
as  to  the  attitude  to  be  assumed  on  all  the  separate  questions  that 
come  before  the  party. 

"Differences  of  opinion  are  always  present  within  the  Party  and 
sometimes  reach  a  threatening  height.  But  they  will  be  the  less 
likely  to  break  up  the  Party,  the  livelier  the  consciousness  in  its 
members  of  the  great  goals  towards  which  they  strive  in  common, 
the  more  powerful  the  enthusiasm  for  these  goals,  so  that  demands 
and  interests  of  the  moment  are  behind  them  in  importance."  (5) 

The  only  way  to  differentiate  the  Socialists  from  other 
parties,  the  only  thing  Socialists  have  in  common  with  one 
another  is,  according  to  this  view,  not  agreement  as  to  prac- 
tical action,  but  certain  ideals  or  goals.  Socialists  may  want 
the  same  things  as  non-Socialists,  and  reject  the  things  de- 
sired by  other  Socialists,  and  their  actions  may  follow  their 
desires,  but  all  is  well,  and  harmony  may  reign  as  long  as 
their  hearts  and  minds  are  filled  with  a  Socialist  ideal.  But 
if  a  goal  thus  has  no  necessary  connection  with  immediate 
problems  or  actions,  is  it  necessarily  anything  more  than  a 
sentiment  or  an  abstraction  ? 

Kautsky's  toleration  of  reform  activities  thus  has  an  op- 
posite origin  to  that  of  the  "reformist"  Socialists.  He  tolerates 
concentration  on  capitalistic  measures  by  factions  within 
the  Socialist  Party,  on  the  ground  that  such  measures  are 
altogether  of  secondary  importance;  they  insist  on  these 
reforms  as  the  most  valuable  activities  Socialists  can  under- 
take at  the  present  time. 

Kautsky  and  his  associates  will  often  tolerate  activities  that 
serve  only  to  weaken  the  movement,  provided  verbal  recog- 
nition is  given  to  the  Socialist  ideal.  This  has  led  to  profound 
contradictions  in  the  German  movement.  At  the  Leipzig 
Congress,  for  example  (1909),  the  reformists  voted  unani- 
mously for  the  reafnrmation  of  the  revolutionary  "Dresden 
resolution"  of  1903,  with  the  explanation  that  they  regarded 
it  in  the  very  opposite  sense  from  what  its  words  plainly 
stated.  They  had  fought  this  resolution  at  the  time  it  was 
passed,  and  condemned  it  since,  and  had  continued  the 
actions  against  which  it  was  directed.  But  their  vote  in 


222  SOCIALISM   AS  IT  IS 

favor  of  it  and  explanation  that  they  refused  to  give  it  any 
practical  bearing  had  to  be  accepted  at  Leipzig  without  a 
murmur.  Such  is  the  result  of  preaching  loyalty  to  phrases, 
goals,  or  ideals  rather  than  in  action.  The  reformists 
can  often,  though  not  always,  escape  responsibility  for  their 
acts  by  claiming  loyalty  to  the  goal  —  often,  no  doubt,  in  all 
sincerity;  for  goals,  ideals,  doctrines,  and  sentiments,  like 
the  human  conscience,  are  generally  highly  flexible  and  subtle 
things. 

Kautsky's  policy  of  ideal  revolutionism,  combined  with 
practical  toleration  of  activities  given  over  exclusively  to  non- 
Socialist  reform,  which  is  so  widespread  in  the  German  move- 
ment under  the  form  of  a  too  rigid  separation  between  theory 
on  the  one  hand  and  tactics  on  the  other,  agrees  at  another 
point  with  the  policy  of  the  reformists.  The  latter,  as  I 
have  mentioned,  seek  to  justify  their  absorption  in  reforms 
that  the  capitalists  also  favor,  by  claiming  that  they  deter- 
mine their  attitude  to  a  reform  by  its  relation  to  a  larger 
program,  whereas  the  capitalists  do  not.  Kautsky  similarly 
differentiates  the  Socialists  by  the  totality  of  their  demands ; 
the  individual  reform,  being,  as  he  concedes,  usually  if  not 
always  supported  by  other  parties  also.  Yet  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  a  program  composed  wholly  of  non-Socialist  ele- 
ments could  in  any  combination  become  distinctly  Socialist. 
A  Socialist  program  of  immediate  demands  may  be  peculiar  to 
some  Socialist  political  group  at  a  given  moment,  but  usually 
it  contains  no  features  that  would  prevent  a  purely  capitalist 
party  taking  it  up  spontaneously,  in  the  interest  of  capital- 
ism. 

What  is  it  that  drives  Kautsky  into  the  position  that  I 
have  described?  To  this  question  we  can  find  a  definite 
answer,  and  it  leads  us  into  the  center  of  the  seeming  mysteries 
of  Socialist  policy.  The  preservation  of  the  Socialist  Party 
organization,  with  its  heterogeneous  constituent  elements, 
is  held  to  be  all-important;  and  this  party  organization 
cannot  be  kept  intact,  and  all  its  present  supporters  retained, 
without  a  program  of  practical  reforms  that  may  be  secured 
with  a  little  effort  from  capitalist  governments.  In  order 
to  claim  this  program  as  distinctively  theirs,  Socialists  must 
differentiate  it  in  some  way  from  other  reform  programs.  As 
there  is  no  practical  difference,  they  must  insist  that  the  ideal 
is  not  the  same,  that  Socialists  are  using  the  reforms  for  dif- 
ferent purposes,  that  only  part  of  their  program  is  like  that 


REFORM  BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION    223 

of  any  one  capitalist  party,  while  in  other  parts  it  resembles 
those  of  other  capitalist  parties,  etc. 

That  "party  necessity"  can  drive  even  radical  and  influ- 
ential Socialists  into  such  a  position  may  seem  incredible. 
But  when  it  is  understood  that  loyalty  to  party  also  conflicts 
with  loyalty  to  principle  in  many  cases  even  to  the  point 
of  driving  many  otherwise  revolutionary  Socialists  to  the  very 
opposite  extreme,  i.e.  to  fighting  against  progressive  capitalist 
reforms  purely  for  party  reasons,  this  willingness  to  allow 
the  Socialist  organization  to  claim  such  reforms  asjn  some 
sense  its  own,  will  appear  as  the  lesser  deviation  from  prin- 
ciple. 

For  example,  Kautsky  opposes  direct  legislation  —  with 
the  proviso  that  perhaps  it  may  have  a  certain  value  in  English- 
speaking  countries  and  under  some  circumstances  in  France. 
His  arguments  in  spite  of  this  proviso  are  directed  almost 
wholly  against  it,  on  the  ground  that  direct  legislation  would 
take  many  reforms  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Party,  would 
cause  them  to  be  discussed  independently  of  one  another 
instead  of  bound  together  as  if  they  were  inseparable  parts 
of  a  program  and  would  weaken  the  Party  in  direct  propor- 
tion as  its  use  was  extended.  (6) 

Yet  Kautsky  himself  contends,  in  the  same  work  in  which 
this  passage  occurs,  that  Socialists  favor  all  measures  of 
democracy,  even  when  the  movement  at  first  loses  by  their 
introduction.  In  a  word  he  holds  that  the  function  of 
promoting  immediately  practicable  political  reforms  is  so 
important  to  the  Party,  and  the  Party  with  its  present  organ- 
ization, membership  and  activities,  is  so  important  to  the 
movement,  that  even  the  most  fundamental  principle  may,  on 
occasion,  be  disregarded.  Democracy  is  admitted  to  be  a 
principle  so  inviolable  that  it  is  to  be  upheld  generally  even 
when  the  Party  temporarily  loses  by  it.  Yet  because  direct 
legislation  might  rob  the  Socialists  of  all  opportunity  for 
claiming  the  credit  for  non-Socialist  reforms,  because  it  would 
put  to  a  direct  vote  a  program  composed  wholly  of  elements 
held  in  common  with  other  parties,  and  differing  only  in  its 
combination  of  these  elements,  because  the  Party  tactics 
would  have  to  be  completely  transformed  and  the  Party 
temporarily  weakened  by  being  forced  to  limit  itself  entirely 
to  revolutionary  efforts,  Kautsky  turns  against  this  keystone 
of  democratic  reform. 

"There   is   indeed   no  legislation  without  compromises," 


224  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

he  writes;  "the  great  masses  who  are  not  experienced  political 
leaders,  must  be  much  easier  confused  and  misled  than  the 
political  leaders.  If  compromise  in  voting  on  bills  were  really 
corrupting,  then  it  would  work  much  more  harm  through  direct 
popular  legislation  than  through  legislation  by  Parliament, 
...  for  that  would  mean  nothing  less  than  to  drive  the 
cause  of  corruption  from  Parliament,  out  among  the  people." 

"Direct  legislation,"  he  continues,  "has  the  tendency 
to  divert  attention  from  general  principles  and  to  concentrate 
it  on  concrete  questions."  (7)  But  if  the  Socialists  cannot 
educate  the  masses  to  know  what  they  want  concretely, 
how  much  less  will  they  understand  general  principles  ?  If 
they  cannot  judge  such  concrete  and  separate  questions,  how 
will  they  control  Socialist  officials  who,  as  it  is  now,  so  often 
build  their  programs  and  decide  their  tactics  for  them  ? 
There  is  no  mechanical  substitute  for  self-government  within 
Socialist  organizations  or  elsewhere.  Direct  legislation  will 
do  much  to  destroy  all  artificial  situations  and  place  society 
on  the  solid  basis  of  the  knowledge  or  ignorance,  the  division 
or  organization,  the  weakness  or  strength  of  character 
of  the  masses.  The  present  situation,  however  useful 
for  well-intentioned  Socialist  "leaders, "  is  even  better  adapted 
to  the  machinations  of  capitalist  politicians.  And  because 
it  militates  against  the  politically  powerful  small  capitalists 
as  well  as  against  the  non-capitalists,  it  is  doomed  to  an  early 
end. 

Kautsky,  in  a  word,  actually  fears  that  the  present  capitalist 
society  will  carry  out,  one  by  one,  its  own  reforms.  For 
the  same  reason  that  he  denies  the  ability  or  willingness  of 
capitalism  to  make  any  considerable  improvements  in  the 
material  conditions  of  labor,  except  as  compelled  by  the 
superior  force  (or  the  fear  of  the  superior  force)  of  Socialism, 
he  would,  if  possible,  prevent  the  capitalists  from  introducing 
certain  democratic  improvements  that  would  facilitate  re- 
forms independently  of  the  Socialist  Party.  However,  the 
economic  and  political  evolution  of  capitalism  will  doubtless 
continue  to  take  its  course,  and  through  improved  democratic 
methods  all  Socialist  arguments  based  on  the  impossibility 
of  any  large  measure  of  working-class  progress  under  capital- 
ism, and  all  efforts  to  credit  what  is  being  done  to  the  advance 
of  Socialism,  will  be  seen  to  have  been  futile.  The  contention 
between  Socialists  and  capitalists  will  then  be  reduced  to  its 
essential  elements :  — 


REFORM  BY  MENACE   OF  REVOLUTION        225 

Is  progress  under  capitalism  as  great  as  it  might  be  under 
Socialism  ? 

Is  capitalist  progress  making  toward  Socialism  by  improv- 
ing the  position  of  the  non-capitalists  when  compared  with 
that  of  the  capitalists,  or  is  it  having  the  opposite  effect  ? 

Even  the  "syndicalists,"  little  interested  as  they  are  in 
reform,  seem  to  fear,  as  Kautsky  does,  that  so  long  as  con- 
siderable changes  for  the  better  are  possible,  progress  towards 
Socialism,  which  in  their  case  also  implies  revolution,  is  impos- 
sible. I  have  shown  that  Lagardelle  denies  that  Labor  and 
Capital  have  any  interest  whatever  in  common.  Similarly, 
a  less  partisan  writer,  Paul  Louis,  author  of  the  leading  work 
on  French  unionism  ("Histoire  du  Movement  Syndicale  en 
France"),  while  he  notes  every  evil  of  the  coming  State 
Socialism,  yet  ignores  its  beneficent  features,  and  bases  his 
whole  defense  of  revolutionary  labor  unionism  on  the  propo- 
sition that  important  reforms,  even  if  aided  by  friendly 
Socialist  cooperation  or  hostile  Socialist  threats,  can  no 
longer  be  brought  about  under  capitalism  :  — 

"The  Parliamentary  method  was  suited  by  its  principle  to  the 
reform  era.  Direct  action  corresponds  to  the  syndicalist  era. 
Nothing  is  more  simple. 

"As  long  as  organized  labor  believes  in  the  possibility  of  amend- 
ing present  society  by  a  series  of  measures  built  up  one  upon  the 
other,  it  makes  use  of  the  means  that  the  present  system  offers  it. 
It  proceeds  through  intervening  elected  persons.  It  imagines  that 
from  a  theoretical  discussion  there  will  arise  such  ameliorations 
that  its  vassalage  will  be  gradually  abolished." 

The  belief  here  appears  that  a  steady,  continuous,  and 
marked  improvement  in  the  position  of  the  working  class 
would  necessarily  lead  to  its  overtaking  automatically  the 
rapidly  increasing  power  of  capitalism.  If  this  were  so,  it 
would  indeed  be  true,  as  Louis  contends,  that  no  revolutionary 
movement  could  begin,  except  when  all  beneficial  labor  re- 
forms and  other  working-class  progress  had  ended. 

I  shall  quote  (Part  III,  Chapter  V)  a  passage  where  Louis 
indicates  that  syndicalism,  like  Socialism  itself,  is  directed 
in  the  most  fundamental  way  against  all  existing  govern- 
ments. He  takes  the  further  step  of  saying  that  existing 
governments  can  do  nothing  whatever  for  the  benefit  of 
labor,  and  that  their  sole  function  is  that  of  repression :  — 

"The  State,  which  has  taken  for  its  mission — and  no  other  could 
be  conceived  —  the  defense  of  existing  society,  could  not  allow  its 
Q 


226  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

power  of  command  to  be  attacked.  The  social  hierarchy  which 
itself  rests  upon  the  economic  subordination  of  one  class  to  another, 
will  be  maintained  only  so  long  as  the  governmental  power  shatters 
every  assault  victoriously,  represses  every  initiative,  punishes  with- 
out mercy  all  innovators  and  all  factious  persons.  .  .  . 

"In  the  new  order  [syndicalism]  there  is  no  room  for  any  capital- 
istic attribute,  even  reduced  to  its  most  simple  expression.  There 
is  no  longer  room  for  a  political  system  for  safeguarding  privileges 
and  conquering  rebels.  If  our  definition  of  the  State  is  accepted, 
that  it  is  an  organ  of  defense,  always  more  and  more  exacting  be- 
cause it  is  in  a  society  always  more  and  more  menaced,  it  will  be 
understood  that  such  a  State  is  condemned  to  disappear  with  that 
society.  .  .  . 

"The  State  crushes  the  individual,  and  syndicalism  appeals  to  all 
the  latent  energies  of  that  individual,  the  State  suspects  and  throttles 
organizations,  and  syndicalism  multiplies  them  against  it.  ... 
All  institutions  created  by  the  State  for  the  defense  of  the  capitalist 
system  are  assailed,  undermined  by  syndicalism."  (8) 

Here  is  a  view  of  the  State  as  far  opposed  as  possible  to 
that  of  Kautsky,  who  says  truly  that  it  is  "a  monster  eco- 
nomic establishment,  and  its  influence  on  the  whole  eco- 
nomic life  of  a  nation  to-day  is  already  beyond  the  power  of 
measurement."  (9)  For  Kautsky,  the  State  is  primarily 
economic  and  constructive;  for  Louis  it  is  purely  political 
and  repressive.  Yet  Kautsky,  like  Louis,  seems  to  feel  that 
if  the  State  were  capable  of  carrying  out  reforms  of  any  impor- 
tance to  the  wage  earners,  or  if  it  were  admitted  that  it 
could  do  so,  it  would  be  impossible  to  persuade  the  workers 
that  a  revolution  is  necessary  and  feasible.  And  so  both 
deny  that  "State  Socialism,"  which  they  recognize  as  an 
intervening  stage  between  the  capitalism  of  to-day  and  Social- 
ism, is  destined  to  give  better  material  conditions,  if  less 
liberty,  than  the  present  society.  Both  the  economic  and  po- 
litical revolutionists  are,  on  such  grounds,  often  tempted  to 
agree  with  the  reformists  of  the  party  and  of  the  labor 
unions,  in  leveling  their  guns  exclusively  against  the  private 
capitalism  of  to-day  —  I  might  almost  say  the  capitalism 
of  the  past  —  instead  of  concentrating  their  attack  on  the 
evils  that  will  remain  undiminished  under  the  State  capital- 
ism of  the  future.  The  reformists  do  this  consistently,  for 
they  see  in  the  constructive  side  of  "State  Socialism,"  not 
a  mere  continuation  of  capitalism,  but  a  large  installment 
of  Socialism  itself,  and  have  nothing  more  to  ask  for  beyond 
a  continuation  of  such  reforms.  Revolutionary  Socialists 


REFORM  BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION        227 

are  inconsistent,  because  they  may  admit  that  the  conditions 
of  the  working  people  under  "State  Socialism"  may  be  far 
better  than  they  are  to-day,  without  invalidating  their 
central  position  that  the  greater  evils  of  to-day  will  remain, 
and  that  there  will  be  no  progress  towards  Socialism,  no 
matter  what  reforms  are  enacted,  until  the  Socialists  are 
either  actually  or  practically  in  power. 

When  the  Socialists  have  become  so  numerous  as  to  be 
on  the  verge  of  securing  control  of  the  government  (by  what- 
ever means),  it  is  unlikely  that  the  privileged  classes  will 
permit  peaceful  political  or  constitutional  procedures  to 
continue  and  put  them  completely  at  the  mercy  of  the 
non-privileged.  In  all  probability  they  will  then  resort  to 
military  violence  under  pretext  of  military  necessity  (see 
Part  III,  Chapter  VIII).  //  when  this  time  arrives,  the 
Socialists  have  not  only  a  large  political  majority,  but  also  the 
physical  power  to  back  it  up,  or  seem  about  to  secure  this 
majority  and  this  power,  then  indeed,  though  not  before 
that  time,  the  capitalists  may,  possibly,  begin  to  make  con- 
cessions which  involve  a  weakening  of  their  position  in  so- 
ciety, i.e.  which  necessitate  more  and  more  concessions 
until  their  power  is  destroyed.  The  revolutionary  reformers, 
if  we  may  apply  this  term  to  Kautsky  and  his  associates, 
are  then  only  somewhat  premature  in  their  belief  that  the 
Socialist  Party  is  now,  or  will  very  shortly  become,  a  real 
menace  to  capitalism;  whereas  the  political  reformers  are 
under  the  permanent  illusion  that  capitalism  will  retreat 
before  paper  ballots. 

Moreover,  Kautsky  and  the  revolutionary  reformers,  in 
order  to  make  their  (physical)  menace  effective,  must  con- 
tinually teach  the  people  to  look  forward  and  prepare  to  use 
all  the  means  in  their  power  for  their  advance.  They  are  thus 
thoroughly  in  accord  with  the  non-reformist  revolutionists 
who,  however  much  they  may  welcome  certain  capitalist  re- 
forms, do  not  agree  that  they  will  be  very  materially 
hastened  by  anything  the  Socialists  can  do.  The  non- 
reformist  revolutionists  assume  that  Socialists  will  vote  for 
every  form  of  progress,  including  the  most  thoroughly  capi- 
talistic, and  acknowledge  that  if  they  fail  in  their  duty  in 
this  respect,  these  reforms  might  be  materially  retarded.  But 
they  are  willing  to  let  the  capitalists  take  the  lead  in  such  re- 
form work,  giving  them  the  whole  credit  for  what  benefits  it 
brings,  and  placing  on  their  shoulders  the  whole  responsibility 


228  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

for  its  limitations.  Their  criticism  of  capitalist  reform  is 
leveled  not  against  what  it  does,  but  against  what  it  leaves 
undone. 

Revolutions  in  machinery  and  business  organization  under 
capitalism,  with  which  Socialists  certainly  have  nothing  to 
do,  they  regard  also  as  not  only  important,  but  of  vast  sig- 
nificance, since  it  is  by  their  aid  alone  that  Socialism  is  be- 
coming a  possibility.  And  now  a  new  period  is  coming 
in,  during  which  the  capitalists,  on  grounds  that  have  no 
connection  whatever  with  Socialism  or  the  Socialist  move- 
ment, will  effect  another  equally  indispensable  revolution, 
in  the  organization  of  labor  and  business  by  governmental 
means.  Revolutionary  Socialists  are  ready  to  give  the 
fullest  credit  to  capitalism  for  what  it  has  done,  what  it  is 
doing,  and  what  it  is  about  to  do  —  for,  however  vast  the 
changes  now  in  process  of  execution,  they  feel  that  the  task 
that  lies  before  the  Socialists  is  vaster  still.  The  capitalists, 
to  take  one  point  by  way  of  illustration,  develop  such  indi- 
viduals and  such  latent  powers  in  every  individual,  as  they 
can  utilize  for  increasing  the  private  income  of  the  capital- 
ists as  a  class,  or  of  governments  which  are  wholly  or  very 
largely  in  their  control.  The  Socialists  propose  to  develop 
the  latent  abilities  of  all  individuals  in  proportion  to  their  power 
to  serve  the  community.  The  collectivist  capitalists  will 
continue  to  extend  opportunity  to  more  and  more  members 
of  the  community,  but  always  leaving  the  numbers  of  the 
privileged  undiminished  and  always  providing  for  all  their 
children  first  —  admitting  only  the  cream  of  the  masses 
to  the  better  positions,  and  this  after  all  of  the  ruling  classes, 
including  the  most  worthless,  have  been  provided  for.  The 
Socialists  propose,  the  moment  they  secure  a  majority,  to 
make  opportunity,  not  more  equal,  but  equal. 

Those  Socialists,  then,  who  expect  that  reforms  of  impor- 
tance to  wage  earners  are  to  be  secured  to-day  exclusively 
by  the  menace  either  of  a  political  overturn  or  of  a  Socialist 
revolution,  and  those  who  imagine  that  the  Socialist  hosts 
are  going  to  be  strengthened  by  recruits  attracted  by  the 
role  Socialists  are  playing  in  obtaining  such  immediate 
reforms,  make  a  triple  error.  They  credit  Socialism  with 
a  power  it  has  nowhere  yet  achieved  and  cannot  expect  until 
a  revolutionary  period  is  immediately  at  hand;  that  is,  they 
grossly  exaggerate  the  present  powers  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment and  grossly  underestimate  the  task  that  lies  before  it. 


REFORM  BY  MENACE  OF  REVOLUTION        229 

They  are  seemingly  blind  to  the  possibilities  of  transformation 
and  progress  that  still  inhere  in  capitalism  —  the  increased 
unity  and  power  it  will  gain  through  "State  capitalism,  "and 
the  increased  wealth  that  will  come  through  a  beneficent 
and  scientific  policy  of  producing,  through  wholesale  reforms 
and  improvements,  more  efficient  and  profitable  laborers. 
They  fail  to  see  that  the  strength  of  the  enemy  will  lie 
henceforth  more  frequently  hi  deception  than  in  repression. 
But  even  this  is  not  their  most  fatal  blunder.  In  attacking 
individualistic  and  reactionary  rather  than  collectivistic 
and  progressive  capitalism,  these  Socialists  are  not  only 
wasting  their  energies  by  assaulting  a  moribund  power,  but 
are  training  their  forces  to  use  weapons  and  to  practice  evo- 
lutions that  will  soon  be  obsolete  and  useless.  They  are 
doing  the  work  and  filling  the  function  of  the  small  capitalists. 
The  large  capitalists  organized  industry;  the  small  capital- 
ists will  nationalize  it ;  in  so  far  at  least  as  it  has  been  or 
will  have  been  organized.  Socialists  gam  from  both  proc- 
esses, approve  of  both,  and  aid  them  hi  every  way  within 
their  power.  But  their  chief  function  is  to  overthrow  cap- 
italism. And  as  the  larger  part  of  this  task  lies  off  some 
distance  in  the  future,  it  is  the  capitalism  of  the  future  and 
not  that  of  the  past  with  which  Socialists  are  primarily 
concerned.  Evidently  but  a  few  years  will  elapse  before 
State  capitalism  will  everywhere  dominate.  In  the  mean- 
while, to  attribute  its  progress  to  the  menace  of  the  advance 
of  Socialism,  is  to  abandon  the  Socialist  standpoint  just  as 
completely  as  do  the  reformist  Socialists  in  regarding 
capitalist-collectivist  reforms  as  installments  of  Socialism, 
to  be  achieved  only  with  Socialist  aid. 

For  Socialists  will  be  judged  by  what  they  are  doing  rather 
than  by  what  they  promise  to  do.  If  political  reformists  and 
revolutionary  reformists  are  both  directing  their  chief  atten- 
tion to  promoting  the  reforms  of  "State  Socialism,"  it  will 
make  little  difference  whether  the  first  argue  that  these 
beneficial  measures  are  a  part  of  Socialism  and  a  guarantee 
of  the  whole;  or  the  second  claim  that,  though  such  re- 
forms are  no  part  of  Socialism,  the  superiority  of  the  move- 
ment is  shown  chiefly  by  the  fact  that  they  could  not  have 
been  brought  about  except  through  its  efforts.  Mankind 
will  rightly  conclude  that  the  things  that  absorb  the  chief 
Socialist  activities  are  those  that  are  also  forming  the  char- 
acter of  the  movement.  In  direct  proportion  as  reforming 


230  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

Socialists  spend  their  energies  in  doing  the  same  things  as 
reforming  capitalists  do,  they  tend  inevitably  to  become  more 
and  more  alike.  Only  in  proportion  as  Socialists  can  dif- 
ferentiate themselves  from  non-Socialists  in  their  present 
activities  will  the  movement  have  any  distinctive  meaning  of 
its  own. 


CHAPTER  VI 
REVOLUTIONARY   POLITICS 

IN  the  most  famous  document  of  international  Socialism, 
the  "Communist  Manifesto"  (published  by  Marx  and  Engels 
in  1847),  there  is  a  fulmination  against  "reactionary  Social- 
ism," which  it  will  be  seen  is  approximately  what  we  now 
call  "State  Socialism."  After  describing  the  Utopian  Social- 
ism of  Fourier,  of  Saint-Simon  and  of  Owen,  the  "Manifesto" 
says : — 

"A  second  form  of  Socialism,  less  systematic  but  more  practical, 
tried  to  disgust  the  working  people  with  every  revolutionary  move- 
ment, by  demonstrating  to  them  that  it  is  not  such  and  such  a  polit- 
ical advantage,  but  only  a  transformation  of  the  relations  of  ma- 
terial life  and  of  economic  conditions  that  could  profit  them. 
Let  it  be  noted  that  by  transformation  of  the  material  relations  of 
society  this  Socialism  does  not  mean  the  abolition  of  capitalist  re- 
lations of  production,  but  only  administrative  reforms  brought  out 
precisely  on  the  basis  of  capitalist  production,  and  which  conse- 
quently do  not  affect  the  relation  of  capital  and  wage  labor,  but  in 
the  best  case  only  diminish  the  expenses  and  simplify  the  admin- 
istrative labor  of  a  capitalist  government.  ...  In  the  promotion 
of  their  plans  they  act  always  with  the  consciousness  of  defending 
first  of  all  the  interest  of  the  working  class.  The  working  class  only 
exists  for  them  under  this  aspect  of  the  suffering  class. 

"But  in  accordance  with  the  undeveloped  state  of  the  class 
struggle  and  their  social  position,  they  consider  themselves  quite 
above  antagonism.  They  desire  to  ameliorate  the  material  con- 
dition of  life  for  all  the  members  of  society,  even  the  most  privileged. 
As  a  consequence,  they  do  not  cease  to  appeal  to  all  society  without 
distinction,  or  rather  they  address  themselves  by  preference  to  the 
reigning  class."  (1) 

Marx  points  out  that  the  chief  aim  of  these  "reactionary 
Socialists"  was  the  transformation  of  the  State  into  a  mere 
organ  for  the  administration  of  industry  in  their  interest, 
which  is  precisely  what  we  mean  to-day  by  "State  Socialism." 

In  contrast  with  this  "reactionary  Socialism,"  now  prev- 
alent in  Great  Britain  and  Australia,  the  Socialist  parties 
of  every  country  of  the  European  Continent  (where  such 

231 


232  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

parties  are  most  developed),  without  exception  are  striv- 
ing for  a  social  democracy  and  a  government  of  the  non- 
privileged  and  not  for  a  scheme  of  material  benefits  bestowed 
by  an  all-powerful  capitalist  State.  Professor  Anton  Menger, 
of  the  University  of  Vienna,  one  of  the  most  acute  and  sym- 
pathetic observers  of  the  movement,  remarks  correctly  that — 
"in  all  countries,  at  all  times,  the  proletariat  [working  class] 
has  rightly  thought  that  the  continuous  development  of  its 
power  is  worth  more  than  any  economic  advantage  that  can 
be  granted  it."  (2) 

The  late  Paul  Lafargue,  perhaps  the  leading  thinker  of 
the  French  Socialist  movement,  a  son-in-law  of  Karl  Marx, 
made  a  declaration  at  a  recent  Party  Congress  which  brings 
out  still  more  clearly  the  prevailing  Socialist  attitude. 
Denying  that  the  Socialists  are  opposed  to  reforms,  he  said : 
"On  the  contrary,  we  demand  all  reforms,  even  the  most 
bourgeois  [capitalist]  reforms  like  the  income  tax  and  the 
purchase  of  the  West  [the  Western  railroad,  lately  purchased 
by  the  government].  It  matters  little  to  us  who  proposes 
reforms,  and  I  may  add  that  the  most  important  of  them  all 
for  the  working  class  have  not  been  presented  by  Socialist 
deputies,  but  by  the  bourgeois  [capitalists].  Free  and  com- 
pulsory education  was  not  proposed  by  Socialists."  That 
is  to  say,  Lafargue  believed  that  reforms  extremely  bene- 
ficial to  the  working  class  might  be  enacted  without  any  union 
of  Socialists  with  non-Socialists,  without  the  Socialists  gain- 
ing political  power  and  without  their  even  constituting  a 
menace  to  the  rule  of  the  anti-Socialist  classes.  Capitalism 
of  itself,  in  its  own  interest  and  without  any  reference  to 
Socialism  or  the  Socialists,  may  go  very  far  towards  develop- 
ing a  society  which  in  turn  develops  an  ever  growing  and 
developing  working  class,  though  without  increasing  the 
actual  political  or  economic  powers  of  this  class  when  com- 
pared with  its  own. 

In  Germany  especially,  Marx's  co-workers  and  successors 
developed  marked  hostility  to  "State  Socialism"  from  the 
moment  when  it  was  taken  up  by  Bismarck  nearly  a  generation 
ago  (1883).  August  Bebel's  hostility  to  the  existing  State 
goes  so  far  that  he  predicts  that  it  will  expire  "with  the  expira- 
tion of  the  ruling  class,"  (3)  while  Engels  contended  that  the 
very  phrase  "the  Socialist  State"  was  valueless  as  a  slogan 
in  the  present  propaganda  of  Socialism,  and  scientifically 
ineffective.  (4) 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  233 

Engels  had  even  predicted,  as  long  ago  as  1880,  that  the 
coming  of  monopolies  would  bring  it  about  that  the  State, 
being  "the  official  representative  of  capitalistic  society," 
would  ultimately  have  to  undertake  "the  protection  of  pro- 
duction," and  that  this  necessity  would  first  be  felt  in  the  case 
of  the  railways  and  the  telegraphs.  Later  events  have  shown 
that  his  prediction  was  so  correct  that  even  America  and 
England  are  approaching  the  nationalization  of  their  rail- 
ways, while  the  proposal  to  nationalize  monopolies  is  rapidly 
growing  in  popularity  in  every  country  in  the  world,  and 
among  nearly  all  social  classes. 

Engels  did  not  consider  that  such  developments  were 
necessarily  in  the  direction  of  Socialism  any  more  than  the 
nationalization  of  the  railways  by  the  Czar  or  the  Prussian 
government.  On  the  contrary,  he  suggested  that  it  meant 
the  strengthening  of  the  capitalism. 

"The  modern  State,"  he  wrote  in  1880,  "no  matter  what 
its  form,  is  essentially  a  capitalistic  machine,  the  State  of  the 
capitalists,  the  ideal  personification  of  the  total  national 
capital.  The  more  it  proceeds  to  the  taking  over  of  produc- 
tive forces,  the  more  it  actually  becomes  the  national  capital- 
ist, the  more  citizens  does  it  exploit.  The  workers  remain 
wageworkers  —  proletarians.  The  capitalist  relation  is  not 
done  away  with.  It  is  rather  brought  to  a  head."  (5) 
Engels  did  not  think  that  State  ownership  necessarily  meant 
Socialism ;  but  he  thought  that  it  might  be  utilized  for  the 
purposes  of  Socialism  if  the  working  class  was  sufficiently 
numerous,  organized,  and  educated  to  take  charge  of  the 
situation.  "State  ownership  of  the  productive  forces  is 
not  the  solution  of  the  conflict,  but  concealed  within  it  are 
the  technical  conditions  that  give  the  elements  of  the  solu- 
tion." 

As  early  as  1892  Karl  Kautsky,  at  the  present  moment 
perhaps  the  greatest  living  Socialist  editor  and  economist, 
wrote  that  the  system  of  laissez-faire,  for  which  "State 
Socialism"  offers  itself  as  a  remedy,  had  long  ago  lost  what- 
ever influence  it  once  had  on  the  capitalist  class  —  which  was 
never  very  great.  If,  then,  the  theory  that  "that  govern- 
ment is  best  which  governs  least"  had  been  abandoned  by 
the  capitalists  themselves,  there  was  no  ground  why  Social- 
ists should  devote  their  time  to  the  advocacy  of  a  view  ("State 
Socialism")  that  was  merely  a  reaction  against  an  outworn 
standpoint.  The  theory  of  collectivism,  that  the  functions 


234  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

of  the  State  ought  to  be  widely  extended,  had  long  been  popu- 
lar among  the  capitalists  themselves. 

"It  has  already  been  seen,"  wrote  Kautsky,  "that  economic 
and  political  development  has  made  necessary  and  inevitable 
the  taking  over  of  certain  economic  functions  by  the  State. 
...  It  can  by  no  means  be  said  that  every  nationalization 
of  an  economic  function  or  of  an  economic  enterprise  is  a 
step  towards  Socialistic  cooperation  and  that  the  latter  would 
grow  out  of  the  general  nationalization  of  all  economic  enter- 
prises without  making  a  fundamental  change  in  the  nature 
of  the  State."  (6)  In  other  words,  Kautsky  denies  that  par- 
tial nationalization  or  collectivism  is  necessarily  even  a  step 
towards  Socialism,  and  asserts  that  it  may  be  a  step  in  the 
other  direction.  The  German  Socialists  acted  on  this  prin- 
ciple when  they  opposed  the  nationalization  of  the  Reichs- 
bank,  and  it  has  often  guided  other  Socialist  parties. 

Kautsky  feels  that  it  is  often  a  mistake  to  transfer  the 
power  over  industry,  e.g.  the  ownership  of  the  land,  into 
the  hands  of  the  State  as  now  constituted,  since  this  puts 
a  tremendous  part  of  the  national  wealth  at  the  disposal 
of  capitalist  governments,  one  of  whose  prime  functions  is 
to  prevent  the  increase  of  the  political  and  economic  power 
of  the  working  people.  And,  although  the  State  employees 
would  probably  receive  a  somewhat  better  treatment  than 
they  had  while  the  industry  was  privately  owned,  they  would 
simply  form  a  sort  of  aristocracy  of  labor  opposed  in  general 
to  the  interests  of  the  working  people. 

"  Like  every  State, "  says  Kautsky,  "  the  modern  State  is  in  the  first 
place  a  tool  for  the  protection  of  the  general  interests  of  the  ruling 
classes.  It  changes  its  nature  in  no  way  if  it  takes  over  functions  of 
general  utility  which  aim  at  advancing  the  interests  not  only  of  the 
ruling  classes,  but  also  of  those  of  society  as  a  whole  and  of  the  ruling 
classes,  and  on  no  condition  does  it  take  care  of  these  functions  in  a  way 
which  might  threaten  the  general  interests  of  the  ruling  classes  or  their 
domination.  ...  If  the  present-day  State  nationalizes  certain 
industries  and  functions,  it  does  this,  not  to  put  limitations  on  capi- 
talistic exploitation,  but  to  protect  and  to  strengthen  the  capital- 
istic mode  of  production,  or  in  order  itself  to  take  a  share  in  this 
exploitation,  to  increase  its  income  in  this  way,  and  to  lessen  the 
payments  that  the  capitalist  class  must  obtain  for  its  own  support 
in  the  way  of  taxes.  And  as  an  exploiter,  the  State  has  this  ad- 
vantage over  private  capitalists :  that  it  has  at  its  disposal  to  be 
used  against  the  exploited  not  only  the  economic  powers  of  the 
capitalists,  but  the  political  force  of  the  State."  (My  italics.) 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  235 

As  an  illustration  of  Kautsky's  reference  to  the  lessening 
of  taxes  through  the  profits  of  government  ownership,  it 
may  be  pointed  out  that  the  German  Socialists  fear  the 
further  nationalization  of  industries  in  Germany  on  account 
of  the  danger  that  with  this  increased  income  the  State 
would  no  longer  depend  on  the  annual  grants  of  the  Reichstag 
and  would  then  be  in  a  position  to  govern  without  that  body. 
The  king  of  Prussia  and  the  Emperor  of  Germany  could 
in  that  event  rule  the  country  much  as  the  present  Czar  rules 
Russia. 

As  a  rule,  outside  of  Great  Britain,  the  advocates  of  the 
collectivist  program  are  also  aware  that  their  "Socialism" 
is  not  that  of  the  Socialist  movement.  In  an  article  in 
the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mr.  John  Martin,  for  example,  indi- 
cates the  "State  Socialist"  tendency  of  present-day  reform 
measures  in  America,  and  at  the  same  time  shows  that  they 
are  removed  as  far  as  possible  from  that  anti-capitalist  trend 
which  is  held  by  most  Socialist  Party  leaders  to  be  the  es- 
sence of  their  movement.  Mr.  Martin  points  to  the  irrigation 
projects,  the  conservation  of  national  resources,  the  railway 
policy  of  the  national  administration,  the  expansion  of  the 
Federal  government,  and  the  tendency  towards  compulsory 
arbitration  since  the  interference  of  President  Roosevelt 
in  the  coal  strike  of  1902,  as  being  "Socialistic"  and  yet  in 
no  sense  class  movements.  They  tend  towards  social  recon- 
struction and  to  greater  social  organization  and  order;  and 
there  are  no  "logical  halting  places,"  says  Mr.  Martin,  "on 
the  road  to  Collectivism."  But  so  far  is  this  movement 
from  a  class  movement  in  Mr.  Martin's  opinion  that  its 
advance  guard  consists  in  part  of  millionaires  like  Mr. 
Carnegie  and  Mrs.  Sage,  "who  aim  at  a  social  betterment  of 
both  getting  and  spending  of  fortunes,"  while  "behind  them, 
uncommitted  to  any  far-reaching  theory,  but  patriotic  and 
zealous  for  an  improved  society,  there  are  marching  philan- 
thropists, doctors,  lawyers,  business  men,  and  legislators, ; 
people  of  distinction."  And  finally  the  army  is  completed  by  ' 
millions  of  common  privates  "for  whose  children  the  better 
order  will  be  the  greatest  boon."  (The  italicizing  is  mine.) 
The  privates  apparently  figure  rather  as  mere  recipients  of 
public  and  private  benefactions  than  as  active  citizens.  (7) 

Some  of  the  reformers  openly  advise  joining  the  Socialist 
movement  with  the  hope  of  using  it  for  the  purpose  of  reform 
and  without  aiding  it  in  any  way  to  reach  a  goal  of  its  own. 


236  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Professor  John  Bates  Clark,  one  of  America's  most  prominent 
economists,  says  of  the  Socialist  Party  that  it  is  legitimate 
because  "it  represents  the  aspirations  of  a  large  number  of 
workingmen"  and  because  "its  immediate  purposes  are 
good." 

"It  has  changed  the  uncompromising  policy  of  opposing  all  half- 
way measures,"  continues  Professor  Clark.  "It  welcomes  reforms 
and  tries  to  enroll  hi  its  membership  as  many  as  possible  of  the  re- 
formers. ...  In  short,  the  Socialist  and  the  reformer  may  walk 
side  by  side  for  a  considerable  distance  without  troubling  them- 
selves about  the  unlike  goals  which  they  hope  in  the  end  to  reach. 
.  .  .  What  the  reformers  will  have  to  do  is  to  take  the  Socialistic 
name,  walk  behind  a  somewhat  red  banner,  and  be  ready  to  break 
ranks  and  leave  the  army  when  it  reaches  the  dividing  of  the 
ways."  (8) 

Professor  Clark,  it  will  be  seen,  has  no  difficulty  in  suggest- 
ing a  "logical  halting  place  on  the  road  to  collectivism"; 
namely,  when  the  Socialists  turn  from  collectivist  reforms  and 
start  out  towards  Socialism. 

Anti-Socialists  may  share  the  Socialist  ideal  and  even  favor 
all  the  reforms  that  the  capitalists  can  permit  to  be  put  into 
practice  without  resigning  their  power  and  allowing  the  over- 
throw of  capitalism.  But  Socialists  have  long  since  seen  a 
way  to  mark  off  all  such  idealists  and  reformers  —  by  pre- 
senting Socialism  for  what  it  really  is,  not  as  an  ideal,  nor  a 
program  of  reform  under  capitalist  direction,  but  as  a  method, 
and  the  only  practical  method,  of  ending  capitalist  rule  in 
industry  and  government. 

When  Liebknecht  insists  on  "the  extreme  importance  of 
tactics  and  the  necessity  of  maintaining  the  party's  class 
struggle  character,"  he  makes  "tactics,"  or  the  practical 
methods  of  the  movement,  identical  with  its  basic  principle, 
"the  class  struggle."  Kautsky  does  the  same  thing  when 
he  says  that  Socialism  is,  both  in  theory  and  practice,  a  revolu- 
tion against  capitalism. 

"Those  who  repudiate  political  revolution  as  the  principal 
means  of  social  transformation,  or  wish  to  confine  the  latter 
to  such  measures  as  have  been  granted  by  the  ruling  class," 
says  Kautsky,  "are  social  reformers,  no  matter  how  much 
their  social  ideas  may  antagonize  existing  forms  of  society." 

The  Socialists'  wholly  practical  grounds  against  "reform- 
ism" have  been  stated  by  Liebknecht,  in  his  "No  Com- 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  237 

promise."  "This  political  Socialism,  which  in  fact  is  only 
philanthropic  humanitarian  radicalism,  has  retarded  the 
development  of  Socialism  in  France  exceedingly,"  he  wrote 
in  1899,  before  Socialist  politicians  and  "reformists"  had 
come  into  prominence  in  other  countries  than  France.  "It 
has  diluted  and  blurred  principles  and  weakened  the  Socialist 
Party  because  it  brought  into  it  troops  upon  which  no  reliance 
could  be  placed  at  the  decisive  moment."  If,  in  other  words, 
Socialism  is  a  movement  of  non-capitalists  against  capitalists, 
nothing  could  be  more  fatal  to  it  than  a  reputation  due  chiefly 
to  success  in  bringing  about  reforms  about  which  there  is 
nothing  distinctively  Socialistic.  For  this  kind  of  success 
could  not  fail  ultimately  to  swamp  the  movement  with  re- 
formers who,  like  Professor  Clark,  are  not  Socialists  and  never 
will  be. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  this  that  Socialists  are  indif- 
ferent to  reform.  They  are  necessarily  far  more  anxious 
about  it  than  its  capitalist  promoters.  For  while  many 
"State  Socialist"  reforms  are  profitable  to  capitalism  and 
even  strengthen  temporarily  its  hold  on  society,  they  are 
in  the  long  run  indispensable  to  Socialism.  But  this  does 
not  mean  that  Socialism  is  compelled  to  turn  aside  any  of 
its  energies  from  its  great  task  of  organizing  and  educating 
the  workers,  in  order  to  hasten  these  reforms.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  larger  and  the  more  revolutionary  the  Socialist 
army,  the  easier  it  will  be  for  the  progressive  capitalists  to 
overcome  the  conservatives  and  reactionaries.  Long  before 
this  army  has  become  large  enough  or  aggressive  enough  to 
menace  capitalism  and  so  to  throw  all  capitalists  together 
in  a  single  organization  wholly  devoted  to  defensive  measures, 
there  will  be  a  long  period  —  already  begun  in  Great  Britain, 
France,  and  other  countries  —  when  the  growth  of  Socialism 
will  make  the  progressive  capitalists  supreme  by  giving  them 
the  balance  of  power.  In  order,  then,  to  hasten  and  aid  the 
capitalistic  form  of  progress,  Socialists  need  only  see  that 
their  own  growth  is  sufficiently  rapid.  As  the  Socialists  are 
always  ready  to  support  every  measure  of  capitalist  reform, 
the  capitalist  progressives  need  only  then  secure  enough 
strength  in  Parliaments  so  that  their  votes  added  to  those 
of  the  Socialists  would  form  a  majority.  As  soon  as  pro- 
gressive capitalism  is  at  all  developed,  reforms  are  thus  auto- 
matically aided  by  the  Socialist  vote,  without  the  necessity 
of  active  Socialist  participation  —  thus  leaving  the  Socialists 


238  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

free  to  attend  to  matters  that  depend  wholly  on  their  own 
efforts;  namely,  the  organization  and  education  of  the  non- 
capitalist  masses  for  aggressive  measures  leading  towards 
the  overthrow  of  capitalism. 

Opposition  to  the  policy  of  absorption  in  ordinary  reform 
movements  is  general  in  the  international  movement  out- 
side of  Great  Britain.  Eugene  V.  Debs,  three  times  presiden- 
tial candidate  of  the  American  Socialist  Party,  is  as  totally 
opposed  to  "reformism"  as  are  any  of  the  Europeans.  "  The 
revolutionary  character  of  our  party  and  of  our  movement"  he 
said  in  a  personal  letter  to  the  present  writer,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Socialist  press,  "must  be  preserved  in  all  its 
integrity  at  all  cost,  for  if  that  be  compromised  we  had  better 
cease  to  exist.  ...  If  the  trimmers  had  their  way  we  should 
degenerate  into  bourgeois  reformers.  .  .  .  But  they  will  not 
have  their  way."  (Italics  mine.) 

No  American  Socialist  has  more  ably  summarized  the 
dangers  opportunism  brings  to  the  movement  than  Professor 
George  D.  Herron  in  his  pamphlet,  "From  Revolution  to 
Revolution,"  taken  from  a  speech  made  as  early  as  1903. 
Later  events,  it  will  be  noted,  have  strikingly  verified  his 
predictions  as  to  the  growing  popularity  of  the  word  "Social- 
ism" with  nearly  all  political  elements  in  this  country. 

"Great  initiatives  and  revolutions,"  Herron  says,  "have  always 
been  robbed  of  definition  and  issue  when  adopted  by  the  class  against 
which  the  revolt  was  directed.  .  .  . 

"  Let  Socialists  take  knowledge  and  warning.  The  possessing 
class  is  getting  ready  to  give  the  people  a  few  more  crumbs  of  what 
is  theirs.  ...  If  it  comes  to  that,  they  are  ready  to  give  some 
things  in  the  name  of  Socialism.  .  .  .  The  old  political  parties  will 
be  adopting  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  Socialistic  planks  in  their 
platforms;  and  the  churches  will  be  coming  with  the  insipid 
'Christian  Socialism,'  and  their  hypocrisy  and  brotherly  love.  We 
shall  soon  see  Mr.  Hanna  and  Bishop  Potter,  Mr.  Hearst  and  Dr. 
Lyman  Abbott,  even  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Bryan,  posing  as  reason- 
able kinds  of  Socialists.  You  will  find  the  name  of  Socialism  re- 
peatedly taken  in  vain,  and  perhaps  successfully.  You  will  see  the 
Socialist  movement  bridled  and  saddled  by  capitalism,  in  the  hope 
of  riding  it  to  a  new  lease  of  capitalistic  power.  .  .  . 

"But  Socialism,  like  liberty  or  truth,  is  something  you  cannot 
have  a  part  of ;  you  must  have  the  whole  or  you  will  have  nothing ; 
you  can  only  gain  or  lose  the  whole,  you  cannot  gain  or  lose  a  part. 
You  may  have  municipal  ownerships,  nationalized  transportation, 
initiative  and  referendum,  civil  service  reforms  and  many  other 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  239 

capitalist  concessions,  and  be  all  the  farther  away  from  Social 
Democracy.  .  .  .  You  may  have  any  kind  and  number  of  reforms 
you  please,  any  kind  and  number  of  revolutions  or  revivals  you 
please,  any  kind  and  number  of  new  ways  of  doing  good  you  please, 
it  will  not  matter  to  capitalism,  so  long  as  it  remains  at  the  root  of 
things,  the  result  of  all  your  plans  and  pains  will  be  gathered  into 
the  Capitalist  granary."  (The  italics  are  mine.) 

Yet  no  Socialist  dreams  that  the  presence  in  the  movement 
of  semi-Socialist  or  non-Socialist  elements,  which  is  both  the 
cause  and  the  effect  of  reformism  and  compromise,  is  a 
mere  accident,  or  that  there  is  any  device  by  which  they  may 
either  be  kept  out  or  eliminated  —  until  the  time  is  ripe.  The 
presence  of  opportunists  and  reformists  in  all  Socialist  parties 
is  as  much  an  inevitable  result  at  a  certain  stage  of  social 
evolution  as  the  appearance  of  Socialism  itself.  The  time 
will  come  when  these  "Mitlaiifer,"  as  the  Germans  call  them, 
will  either  become  wholly  Socialist  or  will  desert  the  move- 
ment, as  has  so  often  happened,  to  become  a  part  of  the  rising 
tide  of  "State  Socialism,"  but  that  day  has  not  yet  arrived. 

The  division  of  the  organization  at  a  certain  stage  into  two 
wings  is  held  by  the  able  Austrian  Socialist,  Otto  Bauer,  to 
be  a  universal  and  necessary  process  in  its  development.  The 
first  stage  is  one  where  all  party  members  are  agreed,  since 
it  is  then  merely  a  question  of  the  propaganda  of  general 
and  revolutionary  ideas.  The  second  stage  (the  present 
one)  arises  when  the  party  has  already  obtained  a  modest 
measure  of  power  which  can  be  either  cashed  in  and  utilized 
for  immediate  and  material  gains  or  saved  up  and  held  for 
obtaining  more  power,  or  for  both  objects  in  degrees  varying 
according  as  one  or  the  other  is  considered  more  important. 
Bauer  shows  that  these  two  policies  of  accumulating  power 
and  of  spending  it  arise  necessarily  out  of  the  social  composi-- 
tion  of  the  party  at  its  present  stage  and  the  general  social 
environment  in  which  it  finds  itself. 

At  the  third  stage,  he  says,  when  the  proletariat  has  come 
to  form  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  population,  their 
campaign  for  the  conquest  of  political  power  appears  to  the 
possessing  classes  for  the  first  time  as  a  threatening  danger. 
The  capitalist  parties  then  unite  closely  together  against  the 
Social  Democracy ;  what  once  separated  them  now  appears 
small  in  comparison  to  the  danger  which  threatens  their 
profits,  their  rents,  and  their  monopolistic  incomes.  So  there 
arises  again  at  this  higher  stage  of  capitalist  domination,  as  was 


240  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

the  case  at  its  beginning,  "a  Social  Democracy  in  battle 
against  all  the  possessing  classes,  against  the  whole  power  of 
the  organized  state."  (Italics  mine.)  (9)  When  the  third 
stage  arrives,  these  reformists  who  do  not  intend  to 
leave  the  revolutionary  movement,  begin  to  get  ready 
to  follow  it.  Already  the  most  prominent  reformist  So- 
cialists outside  of  England  claim  that  their  position  is 
revolutionary.  This  is  true  of  the  best-known  German  re- 
formist, Bernstein ;  it  is  true  of  Jaures ;  and  it  is  also  true 
of  Berger  in  this  country.  Bernstein  argues  in  his  book, 
"Evolutionary  Socialism,"  that  constitutional  legislation  is 
best  adapted  to  positive  social-political  work,  "to  the  creation 
of  permanent  economic  arrangements."  But  he  also  says 
that  "the  revolutionary  way  does  quicker  work  as  far  as  it 
deals  with  removal  of  obstacles  which  a  privileged  minority 
places  in  the  path  of  social  progress."  As  for  choosing  be- 
tween the  revolutionary  and  non-revolutionary  methods,  he 
admits  that  revolutionary  tactics  can  be  abandoned  only 
when  the  non-propertied  majority  of  a  nation  has  become 
firmly  established  in  power;  that  is,  when  political  democracy 
is  so  deeply  rooted  and  advanced  that  it  can  be  applied  suc- 
cessfully to  questions  of  property;  "when  a  nation  has 
attained  a  position  where  the  rights  of  the  propertied  minor- 
ity have  ceased  to  be  a  serious  obstacle  of  social  progress." 
Certainly  no  nation  could  claim  to  be  in  such  a  position  to- 
day, unless  it  were,  possibly,  Australia,  though  there  the 
empire  of  unoccupied  land  gives  to  every  citizen  possibilities 
at  least  of  acquiring  property,  and  relieves  the  pressure  of 
the  class  struggle  until  the  country  is  settled.  This  view 
of  Bernstein's,  let  it  be  noted,  is  a  far  different  one  from  that 
prevailing  in  England  —  as  expressed,  for  example,  in  an 
organ  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party,  where  it  is  said  that 
"fortunately  'revolution'  in  this  country  has  ceased  to  be 
anything  more  than  an  affected  phrase."  Certainly  there 
are  few  modern  countries  where  the  "propertied  minority," 
of  which  Bernstein  speaks,  constitutes  a  more  serious  obstacle 
to  progress  than  it  does  in  England. 

Jaures's  position  is  quite  similar  to  that  of  Bernstein.  He 
declared  in  a  recent  French  Congress  that  he  was  both  a 
revolutionist  and  a  reformer.  He  indorses  the  idea  of  the 
general  strike,  but  urges  that  it  should  not  be  used  until  the 
work  of  education  and  propaganda  has  made  the  time  ready, 
"until  a  very  large  and  strong  organization  is  ready  to  back 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  241 

up  the  strikers/'  and  until  a  large  section  of  public  opinion 
is  prepared  to  recognize  the  legitimacy  of  their  object.  He 
says  he  expects  the  time  to  arrive  when  "the  reforms  in  the 
interest  of  the  whole  working  class  which  have  been  promised 
will  have  been  systematically  refused,"  and  then  "the  general 
strike  will  be  the  only  resource  left";  and  finally  cries,  "Never 
in  the  name  of  the  working  people  will  we  give  up  the  right 
of  insurrection."  This  position  is  verbally  correct  from  the 
Socialist  standpoint,  and  it  shows  the  power  of  the  revolu- 
tionary idea  in  France,  when  even  Jaures  is  forced  to  respect 
it.  But  any  capitalist  politician  might  safely  use  the  same 
expressions  —  so  long,  at  least,  as  revolution  is  still  far  away. 
So  also  Mr.  Berger  has  written  in  the  Social  Democratic 
Herald  of  Milwaukee  that  "all  the  ballot  can  do  is  to 
strengthen  the  power  of  resistance  of  the  laboring  people." 

"We  whom  the  western  ultra  class-conscious  proletarians  .  .  . 
are  wont  to  call  'opportunists,' "  writes  Berger,  "we  know  right  well 
that  the  social  question  can  no  more  be  solved  by  street  riots  and 
insurrections  than  by  bombs  and  dynamite. 

"Yet,  by  the  ballot  alone,  it  will  never  be  solved. 

"Up  to  this  time  men  have  always  solved  great  questions  by  blood 
and  iron."  Berger  says  he  is  not  given  to  reciting  revolutionary 
phrases,  but  asserts  that  the  plutocrats  are  taking  the  country  in 
the  direction  of  "a  violent  and  bloody  revolution." 

"Therefore,"  he  says,  "each  of  the  500,000  Socialist  voters,  and 
of  the  two  million  workingmen  who  instinctively  incline  our  way, 
should,  besides  doing  much  reading  and  still  more  thinking,  also 
have  a  good  rifle  and  the  necessary  rounds  of  ammunition  in  his 
home  and  be  prepared  to  back  up  his  ballot  with  his  bullets  if  neces- 
sary. .  .  .  Now,  I  deny  that  dealing  with  a  blind  and  greedy 
plutocratic  class  as  we  are  dealing  in  this  country,  the  outcome  can 
ever  be  peaceable,  or  that  any  reasonable  change  can  ever  be  brought 
about  by  the  ballot  in  the  end. 

"I  predict  that  a  large  part  of  the  capitalist  class  will  be  wiped 
out  for  much  smaller  things  .  .  .  most  of  the-  plutocratic  class, 
together  with  the  politicians,  will  have  to  disappear  as  completely 
as  the  feudal  lords  and  their  retinue  disappeared  during  the  French 
revolution. 

"That  cannot  be  done  by  the  ballot,  or  only  by  the  ballot. 

"The  ballot  cannot  count  for  much  in  a  pinch."  (10)  (My 
italics.) 

And  in  another  number  Mr.  Berger  writes: — 

"As  long  as  we  are  in  the  minority  we,  of  course,  have  no  right 
to  force  our  opinion  upon  an  unwilling  majority  .  .  .  Yet  we  do  not 

B 


242  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

deny  that  after  we  have  convinced  the  majority  of  the  people,  we  are 
going  to  use  force  if  the  minority  should  hesitate."  (11)  (My 
italics.) 

Few  will  question  the  revolutionary  nature  of  this  language. 
But  such  expressions  have  always  been  common  at  critical 
moments,  even  among  non-Socialists.  We  have  only  to 
recall  the  "bloody-bridles"  speech  of  a  former  populist 
governor  of  Colorado,  or  the  advice  of  the  New  York  Evening 
Journal  that  every  citizen  ought  to  provide  against  future 
contingencies  by  keeping  a  rifle  in  his  home.  Revolutionary 
language  has  no  necessary  relation  to  Socialism. 

Mr.  Berger,  moreover,  has  also  used  the  threat  of  revolu- 
tion, not  as  a  progressive  but  as  a  reactionary  force,  not  in 
the  sense  of  Marx,  who  believed  that  a  revolution,  when  the 
times  were  ripe  and  the  Socialists  ready,  would  bring  in- 
calculably more  good  than  evil,  but  in  the  sense  of  the  capital- 
ists, for  whom  it  is  the  most  terrible  of  all  possibilities.  It  is 
common  for  conservative  statesmen  to  use  precisely  the  same 
threat  to  secure  necessary  capitalist  reforms. 

"Some  day  there  will  be  a  volcanic  eruption,"  said  Berger 
in  his  first  speech  hi  Congress;  "a  fearful  retribution  will  be 
enacted  on  the  capitalist  class  as  a  class,  and  the  innocent 
will  suffer  with  the  guilty.  Such  a  revolution  would  throw 
humanity  back  into  semi-barbarism  and  cause  even  a  tem- 
porary retrogression  of  civilization." 

Such  is  the  language  used  against  revolutions  by  conserv- 
atives or  reactionaries.  Never  has  it  been  so  applied  by  a 
Marx  or  an  Engels,  a  Liebknecht,  a  Kautsky  or  a  Bebel. 
Without  underestimating  the  enormous  cost  of  revolutions, 
the  most  eminent  Socialists  reckon  them  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  probable  gains,  or  the  far  greater  costs  of  continu- 
ing present  conditions.  The  assertion  of  manhood  that  is 
involved  in  every  great  revolution  from  below  in  itself  implies, 
in  the  Socialist  view,  not  retrogression,  but  a  stupendous 
advance;  and  any  reversion  to  semi-barbarism  that  may 
take  place  in  the  course  of  the  revolution  is  likely,  in 
their  opinion,  to  be  far  more  than  compensated  in  other  di- 
rections, even  during  the  revolutionary  period  (to  say  nothing 
of  ultimate  results). 

Revolutionary  phrases  and  scares  are  of  course  abhorred 
by  capitalistic  parties,  and  considered  dangerous,  unless 
there  is  some  very  strong  occasion  for  reverting  to  their  use. 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  243 

But  such  occasions  are  becoming  more  and  more  frequent. 
Conservative  capitalists  are  more  and  more  grateful  for  any 
outbreak  that  alarms  or  burdens  the  neutral  classes  and 
serves  as  a  useful  pretext  for  that  repression  or  reaction  which 
their  interests  require.  Progressive  capitalists,  on  the  other 
hand,  use  the  very  same  disturbances  to  urge  reforms  they 
desire,  on  the  ground  that  such  measures  are  necessary  to 
avoid  "revolution."  The  disturbance  may  be  as  far  as 
possible  from  revolutionary  at  bottom.  It  is  only  necessary 
that  it  should  be  sufficiently  novel  and  disagreeable  to  attract 
attention  and  cause  impatience  and  irritation  among  those 
who  have  to  pay  for  it.  Like  the  British  strikes  of  1911,  it 
may  not  cost  the  capitalist  class  as  a  whole  one-hundredth 
part  of  one  per  cent  of  its  income.  And  it  might  be  possible 
to  repress,  within  a  short  time  and  at  no  greater  expense, 
a  movement  many  times  more  menacing.  Provided  it 
serves  to  put  the  supporters  of  capitalism  on  their  feet, 
whatever  they  do  as  a  result,  whether  in  the  way  of  repres- 
sion or  of  reform,  will  be  but  to  carry  out  long-cherished  plans 
for  advancing  their  own  interests,  plans  that  would  have 
been  the  same  even  though  there  had  been  no  shadow  of  a 
"revolutionary"  movement  on  the  horizon.  The  only  differ- 
ence is  that  such  pseudo-revolutionary  or  semi-revolutionary 
disturbances  serve  as  stimuli  to  put  the  more  inert  of  the  cap- 
italist forces  in  motion,  and,  until  the  disturbances  become 
truly  menacing,  strengthen  the  capitalist  position. 

The  use  of  revolutionary  phrases  does  not  then,  of  itself, 
demonstrate  an  approach  to  the  revolutionary  position, 
though  we  may  assume,  on  other  grounds,  that  the  majority 
of  the  reformist  Socialists,  who  take  a  revolutionary  posi- 
tion as  regards  certain  future  contingencies,  are  in  earnest. 
But  this  indicates  nothing  as  to  the  character  of  their  Social- 
ism to-day.  The  important  question  is,  how  far  their  revo- 
lutionary philosophy  goes  when  directed,  not  at  a  hypothet- 
ical future  situation  but  to  questions  of  the  present  moment. 

In  all  the  leading  countries  of  the  world,  except  Great 
Britain,  the  majority  of  Socialists  expect  a  revolutionary 
crisis  in  the  future,  because  they  recognize,  with  that  able 
student  of  the  movement,  Professor  Sombart,  that  "history 
knows  of  no  case  where  a  class  has  freely  given  up  the  rights 
which  it  regarded  as  belonging  to  itself."  (12)  This  does  not 
mean  that  Socialists  suppose  that  all  progress  must  await 
a  revolutionary  period.  Engels  insisted  that  he  and  his 


244  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

associates  were  profiting  more  by  lawful  than  by  unlawful 
and  revolutionary  action.  It  means  that  Socialists  do  not 
believe  that  the  capitalists  will  allow  such  action  to  remain 
lawful  long  enough  materially  to  increase  the  income  of 
the  working  class  and  its  economic  and  political  power  as 
compared  with  their  own. 

Jaures's  position  as  to  present  politics  is  based  on  the  very 
opposite  view.  "You  will  have  to  lead  millions  of  men  to 
the  borders  of  an  impassable  gulf,"  he  says  to  the  revolution- 
ists, "but  the  gulf  will  not  be  easier  for  the  millions  of  men 
to  pass  over  than  it  was  for  a  hundred  thousand.  What 
we  wish  is  to  try  to  diminish  the  width  of  the  gulf  which  sep- 
arates the  exploited  in  present-day  society  from  their  sit- 
uation in  the  new  society."  (13)  The  revolutionaries  assert, 
on  the  contrary,  that  nothing  Socialists  can  do  at  the  present 
time  can  moderate  the  class  war,  or  lessen  the  power  of  cap- 
italism to  maintain  and  increase  the  distance  between  itself 
and  the  masses.  In  direct  disagreement  with  Jaures,  they 
say  that  when  a  sufficient  numerical  majority  has  been  ac- 
quired, especially  in  this  day  when  the  masses  are  educated, 
it  will  be  able  to  overcome  any  obstacle  whatever,  even  what 
Jaurds  calls  the  impassable  gulf  —  whether  in  the  meanwhile 
that  gulf  will  have  become  narrower  or  wider  than  it  is  to-day, 
and  they  believe  that  the  day  of  this  triumph  would  be 
delayed  rather  than  brought  nearer  if  the  workers  were  to 
divert  their  energies  from  revolutionary  propaganda  and 
organization,  to  political  trading  in  the  interest  of  reforms 
that  bring  no  greater  gains  to  the  workers  than  to  their 
exploiters.  The  revolutionary  majority  believes  that  the 
best  that  can  be  done  at  present  is  for  the  workers  to  train 
and  organize  themselves,  and  always  to  devise  and  study 
and  prepare  the  means  by  which  capitalism  can  be  most 
successfully  and  economically  assaulted  when  sufficient 
numbers  are  once  aroused  for  successful  revolt. 

When  revolutionary  Socialism  is  not  pure  speculation,  it 
takes  the  form  of  the  present-day  "class  struggle"  against 
capitalism.  The  view  that  existing  society  can  be  gradually 
transformed  into  a  social  democratic  one,  Kautsky  believes 
to  be  merely  an  inheritance  of  the  past,  of  a  period  "when 
it  was  generally  believed  that  further  development  would 
take  place  exclusively  on  the  economic  field,  without  the 
necessity  of  any  kind  of  change  in  the  relative  distribution  of 
political  institutions."  (Italics  mine.)  (14) 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  245 

"Neither  a  railroad  [that  is,  its  administration]  nor  a 
ministry  can  be  changed  gradually,  but  only  at  a  single 
stroke,"  says  Kautsky,  to  illustrate  the  sort  of  a  change 
Socialists  expect.  The  need  of  such  a  complete  change  does 
not  decrease  on  account  of  any  reforms  that  are  introduced 
before  such  a  change  takes  place.  "There  are  some  politic- 
ians," he  says,  "who  assert  that  only  despotic  class  rule 
necessitates  revolution;  that  revolution  is  rendered  super- 
fluous by  democracy.  It  is  claimed  that  we  have  to-day 
sufficient  democracy  in  all  civilized  countries  to  make  pos- 
sible a  peaceable  revolutionless  development."  (My  italics.) 
As  means  by  which  these  politicians  hope  to  achieve  such  a 
revolutionless  development,  Kautsky  mentions  the  gradual 
increase  of  the  power  of  the  trade  unions,  the  penetration 
of  Socialists  into  local  governments,  and  finally  the  growing 
power  of  Socialist  minorities  in  parliaments  where  they  are 
supposed  to  be  gaining  increasing  influence,  pushing  through 
one  reform  after  another,  restricting  the  power  of  the  capital- 
ists by  labor  legislation  and  extending  the  functions  of  the 
government.  "So  by  the  exercise  of  democratic  rights  upon 
existing  grounds,  the  capitalist  society  is  [according  to  these 
opportunists]  gradually  and  without  any  shock  growing  into 
Socialism."  (15) 

"This  idyl  becomes  true,"  Kautsky  says,  "only  if  we  grant 
that  but  one  side  of  the  opposed  forces  [the  proletariat]  is 
growing  and  increasing  in  strength,  while  the  other  side  [the 
capitalists]  remains  immovably  fixed  to  the  same  spot." 
But  he  believes  that  the  very  contrary  is  the  case,  that  the 
capitalists  are  gaining  in  strength  all  the  time,  and  that  the 
advance  of  the  working  class  merely  goads  the  capitalists 
on  "to  develop  new  powers  and  to  discover  and  apply  new 
methods  of  resistance  and  repression."  (16) 

Kautsky  says  that  the  present  form  of  democracy,  though 
it  is  to  the  Socialist  movement  what  light  and  air  are  to  the 
organism,  hinders  in  no  way  the  development  of  capitalism, 
the  organization  and  economic  powers  of  which  improve  and 
increase  faster  than  those  of  the  working  people.  "To  be 
sure,  the  unions  are  growing,"  say  Kautsky,  "but  simul- 
taneously and  faster  grows  the  concentration  of  capital  and 
its  organization  into  gigantic  monopolies.  To  be  sure,  the 
Socialist  press  is  growing,  but  simultaneously  grows  the  party- 
less  and  characterless  press  that  poisons  and  unnerves  even 
wider  circles  of  people.  To  be  sure,  wages  are  rising,  but 


246  SOCIALISM  AS   IT  IS 

still  faster  rise  the  accumulations  of  profits.  Certainly  the 
number  of  Socialist  representatives  in  Parliament  grows,  but 
still  more  rapidly  sinks  the  significance  and  efficiency  of  this 
institution,  while 'at  the  same  time  parliamentary  majorities, 
like  the  government,  fall  into  ever  greater  dependence  on 
the  powers  of  high  finance."  (Possibly  events  of  the  past 
year  or  two  mark  the  beginning  of  the  waning  of  the  powers 
of  monopolists,  and  of  the  partial  transfer  of  those  powers 
to  a  capitalistic  middle  class ;  but  exploitation  of  the  working 
class  continues  under  such  new  masters  no  less  vigorously 
than  before.) 

A  recent  discussion  between  Kautsky  and  the  reformist 
leader,  Maurenbrecher,  brought  out  some  of  these  points 
very  sharply.  (17)  Maurenbrecher  said,  "In  Parliament  we 
wish  to  do  practical  work,  to  secure  funds  for  social  reforms  — 
so  that  step  by  step  we  may  go  on  toward  the  transformation 
of  our  class  government."  Kautsky  replied  that  while  the 
revolutionaries  wish  also  to  do  practical  work  in  Parliament, 
they  can  "see  beyond";  and  he  says  of  Maurenbrecher's 
view :  "  This  would  all  be  very  fine,  if  we  were  alone  in  the 
world,  if  we  could  arrange  our  fields  of  battle  and  our  tactics 
to  suit  our  taste.  But  we  have  to  do  with  opponents  who 
venture  everything  to  prevent  the  triumph  of  the  proletariat. 
Comrade  Maurenbrecher  will  acknowledge,  I  suppose,  that 
the  victory  of  the  proletariat  will  mean  the  end  of  capitalist 
exploitation.  Does  he  expect  the  exploiters  to  look  on  good- 
naturedly  while  we  take  one  position  after  another  and  make 
ready  for  their  expropriation  ?  If  so,  he  lives  under  a  mighty 
illusion.  Imagine  for  a  moment  that  our  parliamentary 
activity  were  to  assume  forms  which  threatened  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  capitalists.  What  would  happen  ?  The  capitalists 
would  try  to  put  an  end  to  parliamentary  forms  of  govern- 
ment. In  particular  they  would  rather  do  away  with  the  uni- 
versal, direct,  and  secret  ballot  than  quietly  capitulate  to 
the  proletariat."  As  Premier  von  Buelow  declared  while 
in  office  that  he  would  not  hesitate  to  take  the  measure  that 
Kautsky  anticipates,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that 
this  very  coup  d'etat  is  still  contemplated  in  Germany  —  and 
we  have  equally  good  reason  to  believe  that  if  the  Socialists 
were  about  to  obtain  a  majority  in  the  governments  of 
France,  Great  Britain,  or  the  United  States,  the  capitalist 
class,  yet  in  control,  would  be  ready  to  abolish,  not  only 
universal  suffrage  and  various  constitutional  rights,  but  any 


REVOLUTIONARY  POLITICS  247 

and  all  rights  of  the  people  that  stood  in  the  way  of  the  main- 
tenance of  capitalistic  rule.  Declarations  of  Briand  and 
Roosevelt  quoted  in  later  chapters  (Part  III,  Chapters  VI 
and  VII)  are  illustrations  of  what  might  be  expected. 

The  same  position  taken  by  Kautsky  in  Germany  is  taken 
by  Otto  Bauer,  who  seems  destined  to  succeed  Victor  Adler 
(upon  the  latter's  death  or  retirement)  as  the  most  represent- 
ative and  influential  spokesman  of  the  Austrian  Party.  Re- 
viewing the  political  situation  after  the  Vienna  food  riots  of 
1911,  Dr.  Bauer  writes:  — 

"The  illusion  that,  once  having  won  equal  suffrage,  we  might 
peacefully  and  gradually  raise  up  the  working  class,  proceeding 
from  one  'positive  result '  to  another,  has  been  completely  destroyed. 
In  Austria,  also,  the  road  leads  to  the  increase  of  class  oppositions, 
to  the  heaping  up  of  wealth  on  the  one  side,  and  of  misery,  revolt, 
and  embitterment  on  the  other,  to  the  division  of  society  into  two 
hostile  camps,  arming  and  preparing  themselves  for  war."  (18) 

Even  though  underlying  economic  forces  should  be  found 
to  be  improving  Labor's  condition  at  a  snail's  pace,  instead 
of  actually  heaping  up  more  misery,  no  changes  would  be 
required  in  any  of  the  other  statements,  or  in  the  conclusion 
of  this  paragraph,  which,  with  this  exception,  undoubtedly 
expresses  the  views  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of  So- 
cialists the  world  over. 

"Democracy  cannot  do  away  with  the  class  antagonisms 
of  capitalist  society,"  says  Kautsky,  referring  to  the  "State 
Socialist"  reforms  of  semidemocratic  governments  like  those 
of  Australia  and  Great  Britain.  "Neither  can  we  avoid  the 
final  outcome  of  these  antagonisms  —  the  overthrow  of 
present  society.  One  thing  it  can  do.  It  cannot  abolish  the 
revolution,  but  it  can  avert  many  premature,  hopeless  revo- 
lutionary attempts  and  render  superfluous  many  revolution- 
ary uprisings.  It  creates  clearness  regarding  the  relative 
strength  of  the  different  parties  and  classes." 

The  late  Paul  Lafargue  stated  the  same  principle  at  a 
recent  congress  of  the  PVench  Socialist  Party,  contending  that, 
as  long  as  capitalists  still  control  the  national  administration, 
representatives  are  sent  by  the  Socialists  to  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  not  in  the  hope  of  diminishing  the  power  of  the  cap- 
italist State  to  oppress,  but  to  combat  this  power,  "to  procure 
for  the  Party  a  new  and  more  magnificent  field  of  battle." 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  REVOLUTIONARY  TREND 

WITH  the  exception  of  a  few  years  (1899  to  1903)  the  rev- 
olutionary and  anti-"  reformist "  (not  anti-reform)  position 
of  the  international  movement  has  become  stronger  every 
year.  It  is  a  relatively  short  time,  not  more  than  twenty 
years,  since  the  reformists  first  began  to  make  themselves 
heard  in  the  Socialist  movement,  and  their  influence  increased 
until  the  German  Congress  at  Dresden  in  1903,  the  Interna- 
tional Congress  of  1904  at  Amsterdam,  and  the  definite 
separation  of  the  Socialists  of  France  from  Millerand  at  this 
time  and  from  Briand  shortly  afterwards  (Chapter  II).  Since 
then  their  influence  has  rapidly  receded. 

The  spirit  of  the  international  movement,  on  the  whole,  is 
more  and  more  that  of  the  great  German  Socialist  Wilhelm 
Liebknecht,  who*  ad  vised  the  party  to  be  "  always  on  the  of- 
fensive and  never  on  the  defensive,"  (1)  or  of  La  Salle  when 
he  declared,  "True  political  power  will  have  to  be  fought  for, 
and  cannot  be  bought."  (2) 

The  revolutionary  policy  of  the  leading  Socialist  parties 
has  not  become  less  pronounced  with  their  growth  and  ma- 
turity as  opponents  hoped  it  would.  On  the  contrary,  all  the 
most  important  Socialist  assemblies  of  the  last  ten  years, 
from  the  International  Congress  at  Paris  in  1900,  have  re- 
iterated or  strengthened  the  old  position.  The  Congress  of 
Paris  in  1900  adopted  a  resolution  introduced  by  Kautsky 
which  declared  that  the  "  Social  Democracy  has  taken  to  itself 
the  task  of  organizing  the  working  people  into  an  army  ready 
for  the  social  war,  and  it  must,  therefore,  above  all  else,  make 
sure  that  the  working  classes  become  conscious  of  their  inter- 
ests and  of  their  power."  The  great  task  of  the  Socialists  at 
the  present  time  is  the  preparation  of  the  social  war  of  the 
future,  and  not  any  effort  to  improve  the  capitalists'  society. 
The  working  classes  are  to  be  made  conscious  of  their  own 
strength  —  which  will  surely  not  be  brought  about  by  any 
reforms  which,  however  much  they  may  benefit  the  workers, 

248 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  249 

favor  equally  or  to  a  still  greater  degree  the  capitalistic  and 
governing  classes. 

The  resolution  continued:  "The  proletariat  in  a  modern 
democratic  State  cannot  obtain  political  power  accidentally. 
It  can  do  so  only  when  the  long  and  difficult  work  of  the 
political  and  economic  organization  of  the  proletariat  is  at 
an  end,  when  its  physical  and  moral  regeneration  have  been 
accomplished,  and  when  more  and  more  seats  have  been  won 
in  municipal  and  other  legislative  bodies.  .  .  .  But  where 
the  government  is  centralized,  political  power  cannot  be 
obtained  step  by  step."  (The  italics  are  mine.)  (3) 

According  to  the  proposer  and  mover  of  this  resolution  and 
its  supporters,  nearly  all,  if  not  all,  modern  governments  are 
at  the  bottom  centralized  in  one  form  or  another.  So  the 
resolution  amounts  to  saying  that  political  power  cannot  be 
obtained  step  by  step.  The  election  of  Socialist  minorities 
in  the  legislatures  can  only  be  used  to  urge  capitalism  on  its 
work  of  bringing  up  the  physical  condition  and  industrial 
productivity  of  the  masses,  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  or- 
ganizing and  educating  them  with  the  object  of  seizing  the 
reins  of  power,  of  overthrowing  capitalism,  and  revolutionizing 
the  present  form  of  government. 

The  resolution  adopted  at  the  following  International 
Congress  at  Amsterdam  (in  1904)  was  necessitated  by  certain 
ambiguities  in  the  former  one.  Yet  Kautsky's  explanation  of 
his  own  meaning  makes  it  quite  clear  that  even  the  Paris 
resolution  was  revolutionary  in  its  intent,  and  the  Amsterdam 
Congresses,  moreover,  readopted  its  main  proposition  that 
"the  Social  Democracy  could  not  accept  any  participation  in 
government  in  capitalist  society." 

At  this  latter  congress  Jaures's  proposed  reformist  tactics 
were  definitely  and  finally  rejected  so  that  they  have  not  even 
been  discussed  at  the  later  international  gatherings.  This 
was  a  critical  moment  in  the  international  movement ;  for  it 
was  about  this  time  that  the  tendency  to  opportunism  was  at 
its  strongest,  and  this  was  the  year  in  which  it  was  decided 
against  Jaures  that  all  Millerands  of  the  future,  impatient 
to  seize  immediate  power  in  the  name  of  Socialism,  no  matter 
how  sincerely  they  might  hope  in  this  way  to  benefit  the 
movement,  should  be  looked  upon  as  traitors  to  the  cause. 
The  terms  upon  which  such  power  was  secured  or  held  were 
considered  necessarily  to  be  such  as  to  compromise  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  movement.  Socialists  in  high  government 


250  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

positions,  it  was  pointed  out,  by  the  very  fact  of  their  accept- 
ance of  such  responsibilities,  become  servants  of  a  capitalistic 
administration  —  and  of  the  economic  regime  it  supports. 

Jaures  began  his  argument  with  the  proposition  that  the 
difference  between  Socialism  and  mere  reform  consisted  in 
the  fact  that  the  former  alone  worked  for  "a  total  realization 
of  all  reforms"  and  "the  complete  transformation  of  capital- 
istic property  into  social  property"  -which  is  merely  the 
statement  of  Socialism  as  an  ultimate  ideal,  now  indorsed 
even  by  many  anti-Socialists.  He  next  quoted  Liebknecht 
to  the  effect  that  there  were  only  200,000  individuals  in  Ger- 
many, and  Guesde,  Jaures's  chief  Socialist  opponent  in  France, 
to  the  effect  that  the  number  was  the  same  in  the  latter  coun- 
try, who,  on  account  of  their  economic  interests,  were  directly 
and  completely  opposed  to  Socialism;  and  this  being  the 
case,  he  held  that  the  task  of  the  body  of  working  people 
already  organized  by  the  Socialists  against  capitalism,  was 
gradually  to  draw  all  but  this  200,000  into  the  Socialist  ranks. 
He  concluded  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Socialists  to  "ward 
off  reaction,  to  obtain  reforms  and  to  develop  labor  legisla- 
tion" by  the  help  of  this  larger  mass,  which,  when  added  to 
their  own  numbers,  constituted  97  or  98  per  cent  of  the  popu- 
lation. 

It  goes  without  saying,  replied  the  revolutionaries,  that  all 
Socialists  will  lend  their  assistance  to  any  elements  of  the 
population  who  are  fighting  against  reaction  and  in  favor  of 
labor  legislation  and  reform,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  they 
should  consider  this  the  chief  part  of  their  work,  nor  that  they 
should  even  feel  it  necessary  to  claim  that  the  Socialists  were 
leading  the  non-Socialists  in  these  matters. 

In  contrasting  his  section  of  the  French  Party  with  the 
German  movement,  Jaures  claimed  that  the  French  were 
both  more  revolutionary  than  the  German,  and  more  practical 
in  their  efforts  at  immediate  reform.  "You,"  he  said,  speak- 
ing to  the  Germans,  "have  neither  a  revolutionary  nor  a 
parliamentary  activity."  He  reminded  them  that  having 
never  had  a  revolution  they  could  not  have  a  revolutionary 
tradition,  that  universal  suffrage  had  been  given  to  them  from 
above  (by  Bismarck),  instead  of  having  been  conquered  from 
below,  that  they  had  been  forced  tamely  to  submit  when  they 
had  recently  been  robbed  of  it  in  Saxony.  "You  continue 
in  this  way  too  often,"  he  continued,  "to  obscure  and  to 
weaken,  in  the  German  working  class,  the  force  of  a  revolu- 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY   TREND  251 

tionary  tradition  already  too  weak  through  historic  causes." 
And  finally  he  asserted  that  the  German  Socialists,  who,  a 
year  or  so  before  this  conference,  had  obtained  the  enormous 
number  of  3,000,000  votes,  had  been  able  to  do  nothing  with 
them  in  the  Reichstag.  He  said  that  this  was  due  in  part 
to  the  character  of  the  German  movement,  as  shaped  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  past,  and  partly  to  the  fact  that  the 
Reichstag  was  powerless  in  the  German  government,  and 
claimed  that  they  would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  follow 
the  French  reformists'  course,  if  they  could  have  done  so,  just 
as  their  only  reason  for  not  using  revolutionary  measures  was 
also  that  the  German  government  was  too  strong  for  them. 

"Then,"  concluded  Jaures,  "you  do  not  know  which  road 
you  will  choose.  There  was  expected  from  you  after  this 
great  victory  a  battle  cry,  a  program  of  action,  a  policy. 
You  have  explored,  you  have  spied  around,  watched  events ; 
the  public's  state  of  mind  was  not  ripe.  And  then  before 
your  own  working  class  and  before  the  international  working 
class,  you  masked  the  feebleness  of  your  activity  by  taking 
refuge  in  extreme  theoretical  formulas  which  your  eminent 
comrade,  Kautsky,  will  furnish  to  you  until  the  life  goes  out 
of  him."  As  time  has  not  yet  tested  Jaures's  accusations,  they 
cannot  yet  be  finally  disproved  or  proved.  The  replies  of 
his  revolutionary  opponents  at  the  Congress  were  chiefly 
counter-accusations.  But  the  later  development  of  the  Ger- 
man movement  gives,  as  I  shall  show,  strong  reasons  why 
Jaures's  criticisms  should  be  accepted  as  being  true  only  of  the 
reformist  minority  of  the  German  Party. 

Jaures  referred  to  the  British  unionists  as  an  example  of 
the  success  of  reformist  tactics.  Bebel  was  able  to  dispose 
of  this  argument.  "The  capitalists  of  England  are  the  most 
able  in  the  world,"  he  said.  "  If  next  year  at  the  general  elec- 
tions English  Liberalism  is  victorious,  it  will  again  make  one  of 
you,  perhaps  John  Burns,  an  Under  Secretary  of  State,  not  to 
take  an  advance  towards  Socialism,  but  to  be  able  to  say  to  the 
working  people  that  it  gives  them  voluntarily  what  has  been 
refused  after  a  struggle  on  the  Continent,  in  order  to  keep 
the  votes  of  the  workers."  (This  is  just  what  happened.) 

"Socialism,"  he  concluded,  "cannot  accept  a  share  of 
power ;  it  is  obliged  to  wait  for  all  of  the  power." 

The  Amsterdam  resolution,  passed  by  a  large  majority  after 
this  debate,  was  almost  identical  with  that  which  had  been 
adopted  by  a  vote  of  288  to  11  at  the  German  Congress  at 


252  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Dresden  in  the  previous  year  (1903),  and  although  the 
Austrian  delegates  and  others,  nearly  half  the  total,  had  ex- 
pressed a  preference  for  a  substitute  of  a  more  moderate 
character,  they  did  not  hesitate,  when  this  motion  was  de- 
feated, to  indorse  the  more  radical  one  that  was  finally 
adopted.  And  in  1909,  when  this  Dresden  (or  Amsterdam) 
resolution  came  up  for  discussion  at  the  German  Congress  of 
Leipzig,  it  was  unanimously  reaffirmed.  Those  opposing  it 
did  not  dare  to  dispute  it  at  all  in  principle,  but  merely  ex- 
pressed the  mental  reservation  that  it  was  qualified  by  another 
resolution  adopted  at  a  recent  Congress  which  had  declared 
that  the  party  should  be  absolutely  free  to  decide  the  question 
of  temporary  political  alliances  in  elections.  As  such  electoral 
combinations,  valid  only  for  the  second  ballot,  and  lapsing  im- 
mediately after  the  elections,  had  always  been  common,  the 
Dresden  resolution  was  never  meant  by  the  majority  of  those 
voting  for  it  to  forbid  them.  Its  purpose  was  only  to  insist 
that  the  obj  ect  of  the  Socialists  must  always  be  social  revolution 
and  not  reform,  since,  to  use  its  own  words,  supreme  political 
power  "cannot  be  obtained  step  by  step." 

"The  Congress  condemns  most  emphatically,"  the  Dresden 
resolution  declared,  "the  revisionist  attempt  to  alter  our 
hitherto  victorious  policy,  a  policy  based  upon  the  class 
struggle ;  just  as  in  the  past  we  shall  go  on  achieving  power  by 
conquering  our  enemies,  not  by  compromising  with  the  existing 
order  of  things."  (My  italics.)  In  a  recent  letter  widely 
quoted  by  the  continental  press,  August  Bebel  contended  that 
in  Germany  at  least  the  Social  Democracy  and  the  other 
political  parties  have  grown  farther  and  farther  apart  during 
the  last  fifty  years.  While  Bebel  claims  that  Socialists  sup- 
port every  form  of  progress,  he  insists  that  nevertheless  they 
remain  fundamentally  opposed  even  to  the  Liberal  parties, 
for  the  reason,  as  he  explained  at  the  Jena  Congress  (1905), 
that  "an  opposition  party  can,  on  the  whole,  have  no  decisive  in- 
fluence until  it  gains  control  of  the  government,"  that  until  the 
Socialists  themselves  have  a  majority,  governments  could  be 
controlled  only  by  an  alHance  with  non-Socialist  parties. 
"If  you  (the  Socialist  Party)  want  to  have  that  kind  of  an 
influence,"  said  Bebel,  "then  stick  your  program  in  your 
pocket,  leave  the  standpoint  of  your  principles,  concern  your- 
self only  with  purely  practical  things,  and  you  will  be  cordially 
welcome  as  allies."  (Italics  mine.)  At  the  Nuremburg  Con- 
gress (1908)  he  said :  "We  shall  reach  our  goal,  not  through 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  253 

little  concessions,  through  creeping  on  the  ground,  and  coming 
down  to  the  masses  in  this  way,  but  by  raising  the  masses  up 
to  us,  by  inspiring  them  with  our  great  aims." 

Another  question  arose  in  the  German  Party  which  at  the 
bottom  involved  the  same  principles.  It  had  been  settled 
that  Socialists  could  not  accept  a  share  in  any  non-Socialist 
administration,  no  matter  how  progressive  it  might  be.  But 
if  a  social  reform  government  is  ready  to  grant  one  or  more 
measures  much  desired  by  Socialists,  shall  the  latter  vote  the 
new  taxes  necessary  for  these  measures,  thus  affording  new 
resources  to  a  hostile  government,  and  shall  it  further  support 
the  annual  budget  of  the  administration,  thus  extending  the 
powers  of  the  capitalist  party  that  happens  to  be  in  power  ? 
The  Socialist  policy,  it  is  acknowledged,  has  hitherto  been  to 
vote  for  these  individual  reforms,  but  never  to  prolong  the 
life  of  an  existing  non-Socialist  government.  The  fundamental 
question,  says  Kautsky,  is  to  whom  is  the  budget  granted,  and 
not  what  measures  are  proposed.  "To  grant  the  budget," 
he  says,  "means  to  give  the  government  the  right  to  raise 
the  taxes  provided  for ;  it  means  to  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
governor  the  control  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  money,  as  well 
as  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people,  laborers  and  officeholders, 
who  are  paid  out  of  these  millions."  That  is  to  say,  the 
Socialist  Party,  according  to  the  reasoning  of  Kautsky  and  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  Socialists,  wherever  it  has  become 
a  national  factor  of  the  first  importance,  must  remain  an 
opposition  party  —  until  the  main  purpose  for  which  it 
exists  has  been  accomplished;  namely,  the  capture  of  the 
government,  and  for  this  purpose  it  must  make  every  effort 
to  starve  out  one  administration  after  another  by  refusing 
supplies.  At  the  National  Congress  at  Nuremburg  in  1908 
it  was  decided  by  a  two-thirds  vote  that  in  no  one  of  the 
confederated  governments  of  Germany  would  Socialists  be 
allowed  to  vote  for  any  government  other  than  that  of  their 
own  party,  no  matter  how  radical  it  might  be,  unless  under 
altogether  extraordinary  circumstances,  such  as  are  not 
likely  to  occur.  Some  of  the  delegates  of  South  Germany 
said  that  they  would  not  be  bound  by  this  decision,  but  later 
a  number  expressed  their  willingness  to  accede  to  it,  while 
others  of  them  were  forced  to  to  so  by  the  local  congresses  of 
their  own  party. 

This  question  was  brought  up  at  the  German  Congress  at 
Leipzig  in  1909.  The  parties  in  possession  of  the  govern- 


254  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

ment  had  proposed  a  graduated  inheritance  tax,  which  nearly 
all  Socialists  approve.  Moreover,  a  part  of  the  taxes  of  the 
year  would  be  used  for  social  reforms.  Favoring  as  they  did 
the  change  in  the  method  of  taxation,  would  the  Socialist 
members  of  the  Reichstag  be  justified  in  voting  for  the  pro- 
posed tax  at  the  third  reading  ?  All  agreed  that  it  was  well  to 
express  their  friendly  attitude  to  this  form  of  tax  at  the  earlier 
readings,  but  approval  at  the  third  reading  might  have  the 
effect  of  finally  turning  over  a  new  sum  of  money  to  an  un- 
friendly government;  although  it  would  be  collected  from 
the  wealthier  classes  alone,  it  might  be  expended  largely  for 
anti-democratic  purposes.  The  revolutionaries,  with  whom 
stood  the  chairman  of  the  convention,  the  late  Paul  Singer, 
were  against  voting  for  the  tax  on  the  third  reading,  for  they 
argued  that  if  the  Socialists  granted  an  increased  income  to 
a  hostile  government  merely  because  they  were  pleased  with 
the  form  of  the  taxes  proposed,  it  might  become  possible  in 
the  future  for  capitalist  governments  to  secure  Socialist 
financial  support  in  raising  the  money  for  any  kind  of  re- 
actionary measures  merely  by  proving  that  they  were  not 
obtaining  the  means  for  carrying  them  out  from  the  working 
people. 

Half  of  the  members  of  the  Parliamentary  group,  on  the 
other  hand,  decided  in  favor  of  voting  for  the  tax  on  the  third 
reading,  the  reformists  largely  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
furnish  the  means  for  social  reforms,  Bebel  and  others,  how- 
ever, on  the  entirely  different  ground  that  if  the  upper  classes 
had  to  pay  the  bill  for  imperialism  and  militarism,  the  increase 
of  expenditures  on  armaments  would  not  long  continue. 

The  "  radical "  Socialists  represented  by  Ledebour  proposed 
that  not  one  penny  should  be  granted  the  Empire  except  in 
return  for  true  constitutional  government  by  the  Kaiser. 
Certainly  this  was  not  asking  too  much,  even  though  it 
would  constitute  a  political  revolution,  for  the  majority  of 
the  whole  Reichstag  afterwards  adopted  a  resolution  pro- 
posed by  Ledebour  demanding  such  guarantees.  In  other 
words,  he  would  make  all  other  questions  second  to  that  of 
political  power  —  no  economic  reform  whatever  being  a  suf- 
ficient price  to  compensate  for  turning  aside  from  the  effort 
to  obtain  democratic  government,  i.e.  more  power. 

Bebel,  however,  said  he  would  have  voted  for  the  bill  if  he 
had  been  present,  though  he  made  it  clear  both  at  this  and 
at  the  succeeding  congress  that  he  had  no  intention  of 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  255 

affording  the  least  support  to  a  capitalistic  administration 
(see  below) . 

It  appears  that  Bebel's  position  on  this  matter  is  really  the 
more  radical.  Ledebour  and  Singer  seemed  to  feel  that  the 
further  democratization  of  the  government  depends  on 
Socialist  pressure.  The  more  revolutionary  view  is  that 
capitalism  in  Germany,  with  the  irresponsible  Kaiser,  the 
unequal  Reichstag  election  districts,  the  anti-democratic 
suffrage  law  and  constitution  in  Prussia,  is  impregnable  — 
but  that  the  progressive  capitalists  may  themselves  force 
the  reactionaries  to  take  certain  steps  toward  democracy  in 
order  to  check  absolutism,  bureaucracy,  church  influence, 
agrarian  legislation,  and  certain  excesses  of  militarism. 
(See  the  previous  chapter.)  The  position  of  the  "radicals" 
was  that  capitalism  was  so  profoundly  reactionary  that  even 
the  shifting  of  the  burdens  of  taxation  for  military  purposes 
to  capitalist  shoulders  should  not  check  it.  Bebel's  view 
was  more  revolutionary.  For  even  conceding  to  capitalism 
the  possibility  of  checking  armaments  and  ending  wars,  and 
of  establishing  semidemocratic  governments  on  the  French 
or  English  models,  he  finds  the  remainder  of  the  indictment 
against  it  quite  sufficient  to  justify  the  most  revolutionary 
policy. 

However,  the  main  question  was  not  really  involved  at  this 
Congress.  A  government  might  be  supported  on  this  tax 
question  and  the  support  be  withdrawn  later  when  it  came 
to  a  critical  vote  on  the  budget  as  a  whole,  or  on  some  other 
favorable  occasion. 

It  was  only  at  the  Congress  at  Magdeburg,  in  1910,  that  the 
latter  question  was  finally  disposed  of.  The  Magdeburg 
Congress  not  only  reaffirmed  the  revolutionary  policy  pre- 
viously decided  upon  by  the  German  and  International 
Congresses  already  mentioned,  but  it  also  showed  that  the 
revolutionary  majority,  stronger  and  more  determined  than 
ever,  was  ready  and  able  to  carry  out  its  intention  of  forcing 
the  reformist  minority  to  follow  the  revolutionary  course. 
This  congress,  besides  more  accurately  defining  the  view  of 
the  revolutionary  majority,  made  clearer  than  ever  the  pro- 
found differences  of  opinion  in  the  Socialist  camp.  The  sub- 
ject under  discussion  was :  Can  a  Socialist  party  support  a 
relatively  progressive  capitalist  government  by  voting  for  the 
budget  when  no  fatal  danger  threatens  the  party's  existence, 
such  as  some  coup  d'etat  f  Seventeen  of  the  twenty  Socialist 


256  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

members  of  the  Legislature  of  Baden,  without  any  such  excuse, 
had  supported  a  more  or  less  progressive  government  and 
kept  it  in  power,  the  very  action  that  had  been  so  often  for- 
bidden. 

The  importance  of  this  act  of  revolt  lay  in  the  fact  that  the 
government  the  Socialists  had  supported,  however  progressive 
it  might  be,  was  frankly  anti-Socialist.  On  several  occasions 
the  Prime  Minister,  Herr  von  Bodman,  has  made  declarations 
of  the  most  hostile  character,  as,  for  instance,  that  no  em- 
ployee of  the  government  could  be  a  Social-Democrat,  and 
that  the  local  officials  should  make  reports  of  the  personnel 
of  the  army  recruits  "so  that  those  of  Social-Democratic 
leanings  could  be  properly  attended  to."  After  one  of  these 
declarations,  even  the  Socialist  members  of  the  legislature 
who  had  previously  planned  to  vote  for  the  government,  were 
repelled,  and  decided  that  was  impossible  to  carry  out  their 
intentions.  The  Prime  Minister  thereupon  made  a  con- 
ciliatory speech  for  the  purpose  of  once  more  obtaining  this 
vote.  But  even  this  speech  was  by  no  means  free  from  the 
most  marked  hostility  to  Socialism.  "To  portray  the  Social- 
Democracy  as  a  mere  disease  is  not  correct,"  said  he;  "it  is 
to  be  cast  aside  in  so  far  as  it  fights  the  monarchy  and  the 
political  order.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  tremendous 
movement  for  the  uplift  of  the  fourth  estate,  and  therefore  it 
deserves  recognition." 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  Prime  Minister  withdrew  nothing 
of  his  previous  accusations.  But  the  Baden  Social-Democrats 
finally  decided  that,  if  they  did  not  support  him,  some  impor- 
tant reforms  would  be  lost,  especially  a  proposed  improve- 
ment of  the  suffrage  for  town  and  township  officials.  This 
was  not  a  very  radical  advance,  for  even  the  Frantfurter 
Zeitung,  a  strongly  anti-Socialist  organ,  wrote  that  "from 
the  standpoint  of  consistent  Liberalism  the  bill  left  so  many 
aspirations  and  so  many  just  demands  unfulfilled  that  even 
the  parties  of  the  left,  not  to  speak  of  the  Social-Democrats, 
would  be  justified  in  declining  to  pass  the  measure." 

Indeed  the  South  German  reformists  do  not  really  pre- 
tend that  it  is  any  one  particular  reform  that  justifies  laying 
aside  or  temporarily  subordinating  the  fight  against  capitalist 
government.  At  the  Nuremburg  Congress  in  1908  the  ground 
given  for  an  act  of  this  kind  was  that  if  Socialists  did  not  vote 
for  that  budget  particularly,  a  large  number  of  the  officials 
and  workingmen  employed  by  the  government  would  fail  to 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  257 

receive  the  raise  of  wages  or  salary  that  it  offered.  Heir 
Frank,  spokesman  of  the  Baden  Party,  now  defended  the 
capitalist  government  of  Baden  and  the  Socialist  action  in 
supporting  it,  on  the  general  ground  that  advantages  could 
thus  be  secured  for  the  working  classes.  Of  course,  this  brings 
up  immediately  the  question :  if  moderate  material  advan- 
tages are  all  the  working  people  are  striving  for,  why  cannot 
some  other  party  which  has  more  power  than  the  Socialists 
give  still  more  of  these  advantages?  Indeed,  the  fact  that 
all  these  reforms  were  supported  by  capitalist  parties  and  were 
allowed  to  pass  by  a  frankly  capitalistic  government  (pro- 
gressive, no  doubt,  but  anti-Socialist),  gives  this  government 
and  these  parties  a  superior  claim  to  the  credit  of  having 
brought  the  reforms  about. 

What  were  "the  advantages  for  the  struggle  of  the  working 
class"  that  Frank  and  his  associates  could  obtain  by  voting 
for  the  Baden  Budget  of  1910  —  besides  the  extension  of  the 
suffrage  ?  First  importance  was  placed  upon  school  reforms. 
Several  religious  normal  schools  were  abolished ;  women  were 
permitted  to  serve  on  municipal  committees  for  school  affairs 
and  charities;  the  wages  of  teachers  were  somewhat  in- 
creased; school  girls  were  given  an  extra  year;  physicians 
were  introduced  into  the  schools ;  and  a  law  was  passed  by 
which,  for  the  first  time,  children  were  no  longer  forced  to  take 
religious  instruction  against  the  will  of  their  parents.  Social- 
Democrats  in  the  legislature  were  allowed  for  the  first  time 
to  write  the  reports  for  important  committees,  such  as  those 
on  the  schools,  factory  inspection,  and  town  or  township  taxa- 
tion. Aside  from  these  considerable  improvements  in  the 
schools  and  in  the  election  law,  the  only  advantage  of  im- 
portance was  a  decrease  of  the  income  tax  for  those  who  earn 
less  than  1400  marks  ($350).  One  might  have  expected  that 
a  government  which  claims  to  be  progressive,  to  say  nothing 
of  being  radical  or  Socialistic,  would  altogether  have  exempted 
from  taxation  incomes  as  small  as  $350  —  modest  even  for 
Germany.  Frank  mentions  also  that  100,000  marks  ($20,000) 
was  appropriated  for  insurance  against  unemployment,  but 
this  sum  is  trifling  for  a  State  the  size  of  Baden. 

It  was  not  denied  by  the  radical  Socialists  that  such  measures 
are  desirable,  but  they  did  not  feel  that  it  was  worth  while, 
on  that  account,  to  lay  aside  their  main  business,  that  of 
building  up  a  movement  to  overthrow  capitalist  government. 
As  I  have  shown,  capitalist  governments  may  be  expected 


258  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

continually  to  inaugurate  programs  of  reform  which,  while 
strengthening  capitalism,  are  incidentally  of  more  or  less 
benefit  to  the  working  class.  This  is  neither  any  part  of 
Socialism,  nor  does  it  tend  towards  decreasing  the  economic 
disparity  between  the  classes. 

"If  small  concessions  and  trifles  have  been  referred  to," 
said  the  revolutionary  Karl  Liebknecht,  "it  must  not  be 
understood  that  by  this  it  is  meant  to  undervalue  the  practical 
work  of  the  Badenese,  but  that  what  has  been  attained  is 
considered  to  be  small,  when  measured  by  the  greatness  of  our 
aims.  The  so-called  radicals,  these  are  the  true  reformers, 
the  realistic  political  reformers  who  do  not  overlook  the  forest 
on  account  of  the  trees." 

Bebel,  in  two  long  speeches  delivered  at  this  Congress,  de- 
fined the  Socialist  attitude  to  existing  governments  and  exist- 
ing political  parties  in  a  way  that  no  longer  leaves  it  possible 
that  any  earnest  student  of  Socialism  can  misunderstand  it. 
He  was  supported  by  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  Con- 
gress when  he  said  that  the  policy  of  the  Baden  Social- 
Democrats  meant  practically  the  support  of  the  National 
Liberals ;  that  is  to  say,  of  the  conservative  party  of  the  large 
capitalists.  The  Socialists  of  Germany  all  consider  that  the 
parties  nearest  related  to  theirs  are  the  Radical  or  small 
capitalist  parties,  formerly  called  the  "Freethinkers"  and 
the  "People's"  parties  (Freisinnige  and  Volkspartei)  and 
now  united  under  the  name  Progressive  Party.  But  a  tacit, 
alliance  with  these  alone  could  not  have  been  brought  about 
in  Baden,  so  that  the  Socialists  there  favored  going  so  far  as 
to  ally  themselves  for  all  practical  purposes  with  the  chief 
organization  representing  the  bankers,  manufactures,  and 
employers  —  with  the  object,  of  course,  of  overcoming  the 
conservatives,  the  Catholic  and  aristocratic  parties. 

"Now  all  of  a  sudden  we  hear  that  our  tactics  are  false. 
that  we  must  ally  ourselves  with  the  National  Liberals,"  said 
Bebel.  "We  even  have  National  Liberals  in  our  party.  ...  But 
if  one  is  a  National  Liberal,  then  one  must  get  out.  The  Badenese 
speak  of  the  great  results  which  they  have  obtained  with  the 
help  of  the  Great  Alliance  [i.e.  an  alliance  with  both  National 
Liberals  and  Radicals].  Now  results  which  are  reached  with 
the  help  of  the  National  Liberals  don't  bring  us  very  far. 

"If  we  combine  with  capitalistic  parties,  you  can  bet  a 
thousand  to  one  that  we  are  the  losers  by  it.  It  is,  so  to  speak , 
a  law  of  nature,  that  in  a  combination  of  the  right  and  the  left 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  259 

the  right  draws  the  profits.  Such  a  combination  cripples 
criticism  and  places  us  under  obligations." 

"The  government  can  well  conciliate  the  exploited  classes  in 
case  of  necessity,  but  never  with  a  fundamental  social  trans- 
formation in  the  direction  of  the  socialization  of  society."  The 
reader  must  here  avoid  confusion.  Bebel  does  not  say  that 
the  ruling  class  cannot  or  will  not  bring  about  great  legislative 
and  political  reforms,  such  as  large  governmental  undertak- 
ings of  more  or  less  benefit  to  every  class  of  the  community, 
like  canals  or  railways,  but  that  such  measures  as  are  con- 
ceded to  the  Socialist  pressure  and  at  the  same  time  actually 
work  in  the  direction  of  Socialism  are  few  and  insignificant. 
Bebel's  meaning  is  clear  if  we  remember  that  we  do  not  move 
towards  Socialism  unless  the  reforms  when  taken  together  are 
sufficient  both  to  counteract  governmental  changes  and  the  auto- 
matic movement  of  society  in  the  opposite  direction. 

Frank  tried  to  make  out  that  his  action  and  that  of  his 
companions  in  allying  themselves  with  a  progressive  capitalist 
government  was  similar  to  that  taken  by  the  Socialists  in  other 
countries.  He  mentioned  Denmark,  England,  and  Austria, 
and  one  of  the  governments  of  Switzerland  (Berne),  and  also 
claimed  that  the  Belgians  would  probably  support  a  Liberal 
government  in  case  they  and  the  Liberals  gained  a  majority. 
All  these  statements  except  one  (that  concerning  England) 
Bebel  denied.  We  do  not  need  to  take  his  interpretation  of 
the  Austrian  situation,  however,  any  more  than  Frank's,  for 
an  Austrian  delegate,  Schrammel,  was  present  and  explained 
the  position  of  his  party.  "If  we  voted  for  the  immediate 
consideration  of  the  budget,  we  voted  only  for  taking  up  the 
question  and  not  for  the  budget  itself.  ...  I  declare  on 
this  occasion  that  the  comrades  can  rest  assured  as  to  our 
conduct  in  the  Austrian  Parliament,  that  we  would  under 
no  circumstances  vote  for  a  budget  without  having  the  con- 
sent of  our  comrades  in  the  realm.  We  will  not  act  inde- 
pendently, but  will  always  submit  ourselves  to  the  decisions 
of  the  majority  taken  for  that  particular  occasion."  It  would 
seem  from  this  that  the  Austrians  are  considering  the  possi- 
bility of  voting  for  the  budget  under  certain  circumstances. 
But  the  Germans  would  also  do  this  much,  and  it  is  uncertain 
whether  the  cases  in  which  the  Austrians  would  take  this 
action  would  be  any  more  frequent. 

As  to  the  English  attitude,  Bebel  said :  "The  English  can- 
not serve  us  as  a  model  for  all  things,  first  because  England 


260  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

has  quite  other  conditions,  and  secondly,  because  there  is  no 
great  Social-Democratic  Party  there  at  the  present  moment. 
Marx  would  no  longer  point  to  trade  unions  there  as  the 
champions  of  the  European  proletariat.  From  1871  Marx 
showed  the  German  Social-Democracy  that  it  was  its  duty  to 
take  the  lead.  We  have  done  this,  and  we  will  continue  to  do 
it,  if  we  are  sensible."  As  to  Denmark,  Bebel  said  that  he 
was  assured  by  one  of  the  most  prominent  representatives 
of  the  Danish  movement  that  even  if  the  Socialists  and  Radi- 
cals had  secured  a  majority  in  the  recent  elections,  that  the 
former  would  not  have  become  a  part  of  the  administration. 
France  had  also  been  mentioned  by  some  of  the  speakers, 
since  Jaures  and  his  wing  of  the  French  Party  had  at  one  time 
favored  the  policy  of  supporting  a  progressive  capitalist 
government.  But  Bebel  reminded  the  Congress  that  Jaures 
had  expressly  declared  that  he  had  not  been  persuaded  to 
vote  against  the  budget  by  the  resolution  to  that  effect  passed 
at  the  International  Congress  of  Amsterdam,  but  that,  after  a 
long  hesitation,  he  did  it  "out  of  his  own  free  conviction." 

Bebel  did  not  hesitate  to  condemn  roundly  those  who  were 
responsible  for  this  latest  effort  to  lead  the  party  to  abandon 
its  principles.  He  did  not  deny  that  a  majority  of  the  or- 
ganization in  Baden  and  also  in  Hesse  agreed  with  its  rep- 
resentatives. But  he  attributed  this  partly  to  the  fact  that 
the  revisionists  controlled  the  Baden  party  newspapers,  which 
he  accused  of  being  partisan  and  of  not  giving  full  information, 
and  partly  to  the  regrettable  influence  of  "leaders."  Similar 
conditions  occur  internationally,  and  Bebel's  words,  like  so 
much  that  was  said  and  done  at  this  Congress,  have  the 
highest  international  significance. 

"The  peoples  cannot  at  all  grasp  why  one  still  supports 
a  government  which  one  would  prefer  to  set  aside  to-day  rather 
than  to-morrow,"  he  said.  "A  part  of  our  leaders  no  longer 
understand,  and  no  longer  know  what  the  masses  have  to  suffer. 
You  have  estranged  yourselves  too  much  from  the  masses. 

"Formerly  it  was  said  that  the  consuls  should  take  care  that 
the  state  suffers  no  harm.  To-day  one  must  say,  let  the  masses 
take  care  that  the  leaders  prepare  no  harm.  Democratic  distrust 
against  everybody,  even  against  me,  is  necessary.  Attend  to 
your  editors."  These  expressions,  like  the  others  I  have 
quoted,  received  the  greatest  applause  from  the  Congress. 

It  was  almost  unanimously  agreed  that,  although  the 
Socialist  members  of  the  Baden  legislature  had  acted  against  • 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  261 

the  decision  of  the  previous  Nuremburg  Congress,  it  was 
neither  wise  nor  necessary  to  proceed  so  far  as  expulsion,  and 
Bebel  especially  was  in  favor  of  acting  as  leniently  as  possible, 
but  this  does  not  mean  that  he  found  the  slightest  excuse  for 
the  minority  or  that  he  failed  to  let  them  understand  that  he 
would  fight  them  to  the  end,  if  they  did  not  yield  in  the  future 
to  the  radical  majority. 

"If  a  few  among  us  should  be  mad  enough,"  he  said,  "to  think 
of  a  split,  I  know  it  is  not  coming.  The  masses  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  it,  and  if  a  small  body  should  follow,  it  would  not  take 
three  months  until  we  would  have  them  again  in  our  armies.  Our 
friends  in  South  Germany  who  are  against  our  resolution  ought  to 
ask  themselves  if,  since  the  Nuremburg  Congress,  there  has  not 
appeared  a  noteworthy  reversal  of  sentiment.  Now  to-day  North 
Bavaria  is  thoroughly  against  the  granting  of  the  budget.  Nurem- 
burg is  decidedly  against  it.  Stuttgarters  and  others  who  spoke 
at  that  time  occupied  an  entirely  different  standpoint  to-day.  The 
Hessian  minority  against  the  granting  of  the  budget  was  never  as 
strong  as  it  is  to-day.  In  Hanover  voices  are  to  be  heard  which 
expressed  themselves  very  differently  before,  but  are  now  also 
against  it.  If  anybody  thinks  that  he  can  easily  escape  from  all 
these  phenomena,  then  he  is  mightily  mistaken.  I  guarantee  that  I 
could  draw  out  quite  another  sentiment  in  Baden."  "Try  once !" 
it  was  called  out  from  the  audience,  and  Bebel  answered :  "Yes,  we 
are  ready  to  do  this  if  we  must.  The  proletarians  of  Baden  would 
have  to  be  no  proletarians  at  all  if  it  were  otherwise." 

The  principal  resolution  on  the  question,  signed  by  a  large 
minority  of  the  Congress,  proposed  that  any  persons  who 
voted  for  a  budget  by  that  very  act  automatically  "stood 
outside  the  party."  Bebel  said  that  this  was  not  the  cus- 
tomary method  of  the  organization,  and  pointed  out  that  no 
means  were  provided  in  the  constitution  of  the  party  for 
throwing  out  a  whole  group,  that  the  constitution  had  been 
drawn  up  only  for  individuals,  and  provided  that  any  one  to  be 
expelled  should  receive  a  very  thorough  trial.  As  opposed 
to  this  resolution,  he  offered  a  report  in  the  name  of  the  ex- 
ecutive committee  of  the  party,  which  stated,  however,  that 
there  was  no  fundamental  difference  of  opinion  between  the 
executive  and  the  signers  of  the  resolution  above  mentioned, 
but  only  a  difference  as  to  method. 

This  report  declared  :  "  We  are  of  the  opinion  that  in  case 
the  resolution  of  the  party  executive  is  passed,  and  notwith- 
standing this  the  resolution  is  not  respected,  that  then  the 
conditions  are  present  for  a  trial  for  exclusion  according  to 


262  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Article  23  of  the  oganization  statutes."  This  article  says : 
"No  one  can  belong  to  the  party  who  is  guilty  of  gross  mis- 
conduct against  the  party  program  or  of  a  dishonorable 
action.  Exclusion  of  a  member  may  also  take  place  if  his 
persistent  acts  against  the  resolutions  of  his  party  organiza- 
tion or  of  the  party  congress  damage  the  interests  of  the  party." 

The  passage  of  Bebel's  resolution,  by  a  vote  of  289  to  80, 
was  an  emphatic  repudiation  of  reformism.  In  the  minor- 
ity, besides  the  South  Germans,  were  to  be  found  a  consider- 
able proportion  of  the  delegates  from  a  very  few  of  the 
many  important  cities  of  North  Germany,  namely,  Hanover, 
Dresden,  Breslau,  and  Magdeburg,  together  with  an  insignifi- 
cant minority  from  Berlin  and  Hamburg. 

The  South  Germans  claimed  to  be  fairly  well  satisfied 
with  the  somewhat  conciliatory  resolution  of  Bebel  in  spite 
of  his  strong  talk.  But,  as  has  been  the  case  for  many  years, 
they  were  very  aggressive  and,  in  closing  the  debate,  Frank 
made  some  declarations  which  brought  the  Congress  to  take 
even  a  stronger  stand  than  Bebel  had  proposed. 

"To-day  I  say  to  you  in  the  name  of  the  South  Germans,"  said 
Frank,  "that  we  have  the  very  greatest  interest  in  union  and  har- 
mony in  the  party.  We  will  do  our  duty  in  this  direction,  but  no 
one  of  us  can  declare  to  you  to-day  what  will  happen  in  the  budget 
votings  of  the  next  few  years.  That  is  a  question  of  conditions." 
This  remark  caused  a  great  disturbance  and  was  taken  by  the  ma- 
jority as  a  defiance  and  a  warning  that  the  South  Germans  intended 
to  support  capitalistic  governments  in  the  future.  In  fact,  other 
remarks  by  Frank  left  no  doubt  of  this.  "In  Nuremburg,"  he  said 
"we  rested  our  case  on  the  contents  of  certain  points  of  the  budget, 
namely,  the  increase  of  the  wages  of  laborers,  and  the  salaries  of 
officials.  This  time  we  gave  the  political  situation  as  a  ground. 
These  are,  as  Bebel  will  concede,  different  things."  .  .  .  Frank 
went  on  to  say  that  he  and  his  associates  would  obey  the  resolution 
of  the  Congress  not  to  vote  for  the  budget  under  the  particular  condi- 
tions proscribed  at  Nuremburg  or  at  Magdeburg.  "But,"  he  said, 
"do  you  believe  that  there  ever  exists  a  situation  in  the  world  which 
is  exactly  like  another  ?  Do  you  believe  that  a  budget  vote  to-day 
must  absolutely  be  like  a  budget  vote  two  years  from  now?" 

That  is  to  say,  Frank  openly  and  defiantly  announced 
that  the  South  Germans  might  easily  find  some  new  reason 
for  doing  what  they  wanted  to  do  in  the  future,  in  spite  of 
the  clear  will  of  the  Congress. 

A  new  resolution  was  then  brought  in  by  the  majority 
to  this  effect :  "In  view  of  the  declaration  of  Comrade  Frank 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  263 

in  his  conclusion  that  he  and  his  friends  must  take  exception 
to  the  position  taken  in  the  resolution  of  the  Congress,  we 
move  that  the  following  sentence  from  the  declaration  of 
Comrade  Bebel  in  support  of  the  motion  of  the  party  execu- 
tive should  be  raised  to  the  position  of  a  resolution ;  namely, 
'  We  are  of  the  opinion  that  in  case  the  resolution  of  the  party 
executive  is  passed,  and  notwithstanding  the  resolution  is 
disrespected,  that  then  the  conditions  are  present  for  a  trial 
for  exclusion  according  to  article  23  of  the  organization 
statutes.'  " 

When  this  motion  was  put,  Frank  and  the  South  Germans 
left  the  room,  and  it  was  carried  by  228  to  64,  the  minority 
this  time  consisting  mostly  of  North  Germans.  This  vote 
showed  the  very  highest  number  that  could  be  obtained  from 
other  sections  to  sympathize  with  the  South  Germans ;  for 
the  resolution  in  its  finally  accepted  form  was  certainly  a 
very  sharp  one,  and  Richard  Fisher,  a  member  of  the  Reich- 
stag from  Berlin,  and  others  for  the  first  time  took  a  stand 
with  the  minority.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  the 
total  support  the  South  Germans  secured  at  any  and  all 
points  together  with  their  own  numbers  reached  as  high  a 
figure  as  120  or  one  third  of  the  Congress.  In  the  matter 
of  their  right  openly  to  disobey  the  majority,  the  Baden  Party 
could  not  even  secure  this  vote,  but  was  only  able  to  bring 
together  against  the  majority  (consisting  of  301)  seventy- 
one  delegates,  nearly  all  South  Germans. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
German  Party  is  unalterably  opposed  to  "reformism," 
"revisionism,"  opportunism,  compromise,  or  any  policy 
other  than  that  of  revolutionary  Socialism.  For  not  only  the 
question  of  supporting  capitalist  governments,  but  all  similar 
policies,  were  condemned  by  these  decisive  majorities. 

How  much  this  means  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
"revisionists"  as  the  "reformists"  are  called  in  Germany, 
practically  propose  that  the  Socialist  Party  should  resolve 
itself  for  an  indefinite  period  into  an  ordinary  democratic 
reform  party  in  close  alliance  with  other  non-Socialist  parties. 

"The  weightiest  step  on  the  road  to  power,"  wrote  the 
revisionist  Maurenbrecher,  "is  that  we  should  succeed  in 
the  coming  Reichstag  in  shaping  the  Liberal  and  Social- 
Democratic  majority  (formed)  for  defense  against  the  con- 
servatives, into  a  positive  and  effective  working  majority." 
In  discussing  the  support  of  the  budget  by  the  Social-Demo- 


264  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

crats  of  Baden,  Quessel  explained  definitely  what  kind  of 
positive  and  effective  work  such  an  alliance  would  be  expected 
to  undertake;  namely,  "To  fight  personal  government  [of 
the  Kaiser],  to  protect  earnestly  the  interest  of  the  consumers 
against  the  exploiting  agrarian  politicians,  to  undertake  lim- 
itations of  armaments  on  the  basis  of  international  treaties, 
to  introduce  a  new  division  of  the  election  districts  [which 
has  not  been  done  since  1871],  and  to  bring  about  a  legal 
limitation  of  the  hours  of  labor  to  ten  at  the  most." 
Already  the  radical  parties  now  united,  favor  all  these 
measures  except  the  limitation  of  armaments,  which  from  the 
analogy  with  peace  movements  in  other  countries,  and  cer- 
tain indications  even  in  Germany,  they  may  favor  within 
a  very  few  years.  Quessel's  program  is  that  of  the  non- 
Socialist  reformers,  and  a  step,  not  towards  Socialism,  but 
towards  collectivist  capitalism. 

Karl  Kautsky  has  dealt  with  the  immediate  bearing  in 
German  Socialism  of  what  he  calls  "the  Baden  rebellion," 
at  some  length,  in  answer  to  Maurenbrecher,  Quessel,  and 
others.  (4)  "The  idea  of  an  alliance  from  Bassermann 
[the  National  Liberal  leader]  to  Bebel  appears  at  the  first 
glance  to  be  quite  reasonable,"  he  writes,  for  "divided  we 
are  nothing,  united  we  are  a  power.  And  the  immediate 
interest  of  the  Liberals  and  of  the  Social-Democrats  is  the 
same :  '  the  transformation  of  Germany  from  a  bureaucratic 
feudal  state  into  a  constitutional,  parliamentary,  Liberal, 
and  industrial  State.' "  Kautsky,  however,  combats  the 
proposed  alliance,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Social- 
Democratic  Party,  along  three  different  lines.  First,  he 
shows  that  the  purposes  of  the  Liberals  in  entering  into 
such  a  combination  are  entirely  at  variance  with  those  of  the 
Socialists;  second,  that  the  Liberals  are  discredited  before 
the  German  people  and  are  not  likely  to  have  the  principle 
or  the  capacity  even  to  obtain  those  limited  reforms  which 
they  have  set  on  their  program,  and,  third,  that  even  if  the 
two  former  reasons  did  not  hold,  the  Socialists  would  necessa- 
rily have  everything  to  lose  by  such  common  action. 

The  second  argument  seems  to  prove  too  much.  Kautsky 
reasons  that  neither  the  Radical  not  the  Liberal  parties  can 
be  relied  upon  even  to  carry  out  their  own  platforms :  - 

'The  masses  now  trust  the  Social  Democracy  exclusively  because 
it  is  the  only  party  which  stands  in  irreconcilable  hostility  to  the 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  265 

reigning  regime,  which  does  not  treat  with  it,  which  does  not  sell 
principles  for  offices ;  the  only  one  which  swings  into  the  field  ener- 
getically against  militarism,  personal  government,  the  three-class 
election  system,  the  hunger  tyranny  [the  protective  tariff].  On  this 
depends  the  tremendous  efficiency  which  our  party  has  to-day.  On 
this  depends  the  great  results  which  it  promises  us.  ...  The  whole 
effect  of  the  Great  Alliance  policy  [the  proposed  alliance  of  Socialists 
with  the  Radicals  and  National  Liberals],  if  ever  it  became  possible 
in  the  nation,  at  the  best  would  be  this :  that  we  would  serve  to  the 
Liberals  as  the  step  on  which  they  would  climb  up  into  the  govern- 
ment crib,  in  order  to  continue  the  same  reactionary  policies  which 
are  now  being  carried  on,  with  a  few  unimportant  variations :  im- 
perialism, the  naval  policy,  increase  of  the  army,  the  increase  of 
officials,  the  continuation  of  the  protective  tariff  policy,  and  the 
postponement  of  Prussian  electoral  reforms." 

But  if  the  Liberals  and  Radicals  refuse  to  carry  out  their 
own  pledges,  the  conclusion  would  seem  to  be,  not  Kautsky's 
revolutionary  one,  but  that  the  Socialists,  far  from  stopping 
with  a  mere  alliance,  must  take  up  the  Liberals'  or  the 
Radicals'  functions,  as  the  "reformists"  desire.  However, 
there  are  strong  grounds  for  believing  that  the  Liberals  in 
Germany  will  at  last  rise  to  the  level  of  their  own  opportu- 
nities, as  they  have  done  in  other  countries.  Already,  the 
last  Reichstag  passed  a  resolution  demanding  that  the  Kaiser 
should  be  held  responsible  to  that  body,  which  means  an  end 
to  personal  rule ;  already  the  Radicals  are  in  favor  of  Prussian 
electoral  reform,  and  would  undertake  sweeping,  if  not  satis- 
factory, changes  in  the  tariff;  and  already  the  agitation 
against  militarism  is  sincere  and  profound  among  those  power- 
ful elements  of  the  capitalists  whose  interests  are  damaged  by 
it,  as  well  as  among  the  "new  middle-class."  If  the  present 
tendencies  continue,  why  may  not  the  Radicals  go  farther  ? 
Is  it  not  probable  even  that  the  Reichstag  election  districts 
will  be  equalized,  and  possible  that  equal  suffrage  in  Prussia 
will  be  established  by  their  support?  For  if  the  Radicals 
recognized,  like  those  of  other  countries,  that  equal  suffrage 
would  render  the  reforms  of  capitalist  collectivism  feasible, 
they  could  considerably  increase  their  vote  by  means  of  these 
reforms  and  hold  the  balance  of  power  for  a  considerable 
period;  the  Socialists  would  be  far  from  a  majority,  as  they 
would  thus  lose  those  supporters  who  have  voted  with  them 
solely  because  for  the  moment  the  Socialists  were  advancing 
the  Radical  program  more  effectively  than  the  Radicals. 


266  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

The  chief  Socialist  argument  against  any  political  alliance 
with  capitalist  parties  is,  however,  of  a  more  general  character. 
Referring  to  the  elections  of  1912,  Kautsky  said  :  — 

"How  far  they  will  bring  us  an  increase  in  seats  cannot  be  deter- 
mined to-day.  .  .  .  But  an  increase  of  votes  is  certain  —  if  we 
remain  what  we  have  been,  the  deadly  enemy  of  the  existing  social 
and  political  condition,  which  is  oppressing  the  masses  more  cruelly 
all  the  time,  and  for  the  overthrow  of  which  they  are  all  the  time 
more  ardently  longing.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  go  into  the  electoral 
struggle  arm  in  arm  with  the  Freethinkers  (Radicals)  or  even  with 
the  National  Liberals,  if  we  make  ourselves  their  accomplices,  if  we 
declare  ourselves  ready  for  the  same  miserable  behavior  which  the 
Freethinkers  made  themselves  guilty  of  by  entering  into  an  alliance 
with  von  Buelow,  we  may  disillusion  the  masses ;  we  may  push  them 
from  us  and  kill  political  life.  If  the  Social  Democracy  ceases  to  be 
an  opposition  party,  if  even  this  party  is  ready  to  betray  its  friends 
as  soon  as  it  becomes  by  such  means  "capable  of  governing,"  those 
who  are  oppressed  by  present-day  conditions  will  lose  all  confidence 
in  progress  by  political  struggle ;  then  we  shall  be  sowing  on  the  one 
side  the  seeds  of  political  indifference  and  on  the  other  those  of  an 
anarchistical  labor  unionism."  (Italics  mine.)  (4) 

Here  is  the  generally  accepted  reason  for  the  Socialist's 
radical  attitude.  In  most  countries  Socialists  are  unwilling 
to  make  themselves  accomplices  in  what  they  consider  to 
be  the  political  crimes  of  all  existing  governments.  Especially 
do  they  feel  that  no  reform  to  which  the  capitalists  would 
conceivably  consent  would  justify  any  alliance.  The  inevit- 
able logic  of  Kautsky 's  own  position  is  that,  even  if  the  liberals 
in  Germany  and  elsewhere  do  undertake  a  broad  program  of 
reform,  including  all  those  Kautsky  mentions  as  improbable, 
no  sufficient  ground  for  an  alliance  is  at  hand. 

Kautsky  himself  now  admits  that  there  seems  to  be  a  re- 
vival of  genuine  capitalistic  Liberalism  in  Germany,  which 
may  lead  the  Liberal  parties  to  become  more  and  more 
radical  and  even  ultimately  to  democratize  that  country  — 
with  the  powerful  aid,  of  course,  of  the  Social-Democrats. 
Evidence  of  this  possibility  he  saw  both  in  the  support  given 
by  Liberals  of  all  shades -to  Socialist  candidates  in  many  of 
the  second  ballots  (in  the  election  of  1912)  and  the  fact  that 
Bebel  secured  the  overwhelming  majority  of  Liberal  votes  as 
temporary  President,  while  another  revolutionary  Socialist, 
Scheidemann,  was  actually  elected  by  their  aid  as  first  tem- 
porary Vice  President  of  the  Reichstag. 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  267 

Kautsky  asserts  cautiously  that  this  denotes  a  possible 
revolution  in  German  Liberalism.  He  again  mentions  Im- 
perialism as  the  great  issue  that  forbids  even  temporary  co- 
operation between  Socialists  and  the  most  advanced  of  the 
Radicals.  But  he  admits  that  the  rapid  development  of 
China  and  other  Eastern  countries  will  probably  check  the 
profits  to  be  made  by  Europe  and  America  from  their  eco- 
nomic development.  And  after  Imperialism1  begins  to  wane 
in  popularity  among  certain  of  the  middle  classes,  i.e.  the 
salaried  and  professional  classes,  he  thinks  the  latter  may 
turn  to  genuine  democratic,  though  capitalistic,  Liberalism. 

He  reaches  this  conclusion  with  some  hesitation,  however. 
These  new  middle  classes  differ  fundamentally  from  the  older 
middle  classes,  which  were  composed  chiefly  of  small  farmers, 
shopkeepers,  and  artisans.  The  old  middle  classes,  when 
they  found  themselves  in  a  hopeless  position,  have  often 
joined  with  the  proletariat  to  bring  about  revolutions,  only 
to  betray  it,  however,  after  they  had  won.  The  new  middle 
class  is  most  dependent  on  the  large  capitalists  for  favor 
and  promotion,  and  so  is  not  in  the  least  revolutionary.  It 
does  not  care  to  fight  with  the  proletariat  until  the  latter  be- 
comes very  strong,  but  when  victory  seems  possible,  by  a 
concerted  action  will  be  ready,  because  of  its  lack  of  prop- 
erty, to  stand  steadfastly  for  Socialism. 

The  question  remains  as  to  when  such  a  Socialist  victory 
will  be  imminent.  Kautsky  holds  that  as  soon  as  Impe- 
rialism fails  as  a  propaganda,  the  ground  is  ready  for  Socialism 
to  flourish,  and  that  the  new  middle  class  then  divides  into 
two  parts,  one  of  which  remains  reactionary,  while  the  other 
becomes  Socialistic  (Berliner  Vorwaerts,  February  25,  1912). 

I  have  shown  that  after  Imperialism,  on  the  contrary,  we 
may  expect  a  temporarily  successful  Liberal  policy  based  on 
capitalistic  collectivism,  and  even  on  complete  political  de- 
mocracy, where  the  small  farmers  are  sufficiently  numerous. 
This  view  would  accord  with  the  latest  opinion  of  Kautsky, 
except  that  he  expects  the  new  policy  to  be  supported  chiefly 
by  the  salaried  and  professional  classes.  I  have  proved,  on 
the  contrary,  that  it  is  to  the  economic  interest  also  of  all 
those  capitalists,  whether  large  or  small,  who  are  deeply 
rooted  in  the  capitalist  system  and  therefore  want  its  evolu- 
tion to  continue.  In  favor  of  "  State  Socialism,"  therefore, 
will  be  found  most  active  trust  magnates,  the  prosperous 
middle  and  upper  groups  of  farmers,  and  those  remaining 


268  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

capitalists  who  either  through  their  economic  or  through 
their  political  position  have  no  cause  to  be  alarmed  at  the 
present  concentration  of  capital.  Against  the  collectivist 
tendency  will  be  all  those  capitalists  who  want  to  compete 
with  trusts,  city  landlords,  and  real  estate  dealers,  and  finan- 
cial magnates  whose  power  consists  largely  in  their  control 
over  the  wealth  of  inactive  large  capitalists  or  small  in- 
vestors. 

Kautsky  has  begun  to  see  that  a  progressive  capitalistic 
policy  may  take  hold  of  the  professional  and  salaried  classes 
in  Germany  ;  he  would  probably  not  deny  that  in  many 
other  countries  it  is  being  taken  up  by  certain  groups  of 
capitalists  also,  and  that  this  same  tendency  may  soon  be 
seen  in  Germany.  And  when  it  is,  the  German  Socialists 
will  obviously  be  less  anxious  about  the  fate  of  much-needed 
reforms,  will  find  themselves  able  more  frequently  to  trust 
these  reforms  to  capitalistic  progressives,  and  will  give  them- 
selves over  more  largely  than  ever  to  the  direct  preparation 
of  the  masses  for  the  overthrow  of  capitalist  government. 

That  is  to  say,  the  Socialist  movement,  like  all  the  other 
forces  of  individual  and  social  life,  becomes  more  aggressive 
as  it  becomes  stronger  —  and  it  is,  indeed,  inexplicable  how 
the  opposite  view  has  spread  among  its  opponents. 

Not  only  does  it  seem  that  the  German  movement  is 
showing  little  or  no  tendency  to  relax  the  radical  nature  of 
its  demands,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  its  enemies  are,  for 
the  present  at  least,  to  be  given  the  satisfaction  of  seeing 
even  a  minority  split  off  from  the  main  body.  That  a  split 
may  occur  in  the  future  is  not  improbable,  but  if  the  move- 
ment continues  to  grow  as  it  has  grown,  it  can  afford  to  lose 
many  minorities,  just  as  it  has  suffered  comparatively  little 
damage  from  the  desertion  of  several  prominent  individual 
figures. 

It  is  true  that  the  division  of  opinion  in  the  Party  might 
now  be  sharper  but  for  the  artificial  unity  created  by  the  great 
fight  for  a  more  democratic  form  of  government  that  lies 
immediately  ahead.  If  the  needed  reforms  are  granted  with- 
out any  very  revolutionary  proceedings  on  the  part  of  the 
Socialists,  as  similar  reforms  were  granted  in  Austria,  the 
Party  might  then  conceivably  divide  into  two  parts,  in 
which  case  it  is  probable  that  a  majority  of  the  four  million 
Socialist  voters  might  go  with  the  anti-revolutionist  and  reform 
wing,  but  it  is  equally  probable  that  a  large  majority  of  the 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  269 

Party  members  —  now  nearly  a  million  (including  women)  — 
would  go  with  the  revolutionists.  In  case  of  a  split,  the  re- 
form wing  of  the  party,  already  in  the  friendliest  relations 
with  the  non-Socialist  radicals,  would  doubtless  join  with 
them  to  constitute  a  very  powerful,  semidemocratic  party, 
similar  to  the  Radicals  and  Labourites  of  Great  Britain  or 
the  so-called  "Socialist  Radicals"  and  " Independent  Social- 
ists/' who  dominate  the  Parliament  of  France.  Besides  a 
difference  in  ideals,  which  counts  for  little  in  practical  poli- 
tics, —  for  nothing,  in  the  extremely  opportunist  policies 
of  the  "reformists,"  —  the  only  difference  of  importance 
between  them  is  in  their  attitude  towards  militarism  and 
war.  If  peace  is  firmly  established  with  France,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  what  can  keep  the  reformers  and  the  "reformists" 
of  Germany  much  longer  apart. 

A  more  or  less  "State  Socialistic"  Party,  such  as  would  re- 
sult from  this  fusion  would,  of  course,  involve  concessions 
by  both  sides.  While  the  non-Socialist  "reformers"  would 
have  to  adopt  a  more  aggressive  attitude  in  their  fight  for 
a  certain  measure  of  democracy  and  against  militarism,  and 
would  have  to  be  ready  to  defend  the  rights  of  the  more  con- 
servative labor  unions,  the  "reformists"  would  have  to  take 
up  a  still  more  active  interest  in  colonies  and  still  further 
their  republicanism.  Many  of  them  have  already  gone  far 
in  these  directions.  Colonialism  even  had  the  upper  hand 
among  the  Germans  at  the'  Stuttgart  Congress  (1907) ;  and 
the  tendency  of  the  South  Germans  to  break  the  Socialist 
tradition  and  tacitly  to  accept  monarchy  by  participation 
in  court  functions  is  one  of  the  most  common  causes  of 
recrimination  in  the  German  Party.  It  is  difficult,  then,  to 
see  how  these  two  movements  can  long  keep  apart.  The 
only  question  is  whether,  when  the  time  comes,  individuals 
or  minorities  will  leave  the  Socialist  Party  for  this  purpose, 
or  whether  in  some  of  the  States  the  Party  organization  will 
be  captured  as  a  whole,  leaving  only  a  minority  to  form  a 
new  Socialist  Party. 

"It  is  a  well-known  fact,"  says  W.  C.  Dreher,  expressing  the 
prevalent  view  of  the  German  movement,  "that,  for  some  years, 
many  voters  have  been  helping  those  who  by  no  means  subscribe 
to  the  Socialists'  creed,  —  doing  so  as  the  most  effective  means  of 
protecting  against  the  general  policy  of  the  government.  It  is 
equally  certain  that  a  large  part  of  the  regular  Socialist  member- 
ship is  composed  of  discontented  men  who  have  but  a  lukewarm 


270  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

interest  in  collectivism,  or  believe  that  it  can  never  be  realized.  .  .  . 
If  a  change  should  come  over  Germany,  if  Prussia  should  get  rid 
of  its  plutocratic  suffrage  reform  and  give  real  ballot  reform,  if  the 
protective  duties  should  be  reduced  in  the  interest  of  the  poorest 
class  of  consumers,  —  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that  the  tide  of 
Socialism  would  soon  begin  to  ebb."  (6) 

If  Mr.  Dreher  had  added  the  reduction  of  military  burdens  to 
tariff  reform  and  equal  Reichstag  election  districts,  an  extended 
suffrage  for  Prussia,  and  a  responsible  ministry,  there  would  have 
been  at  least  this  truth  in  his  statement  —  that  if  all  these  things 
were  accomplished,  the  tide  of  Socialist  votes  would  for  the  moment 
be  checked.  His  interpretation  of  the  situation,  however,  is  typi- 
cal of  the  illogical  statements  now  so  commonly  made  concerning 
the  growth  of  the  German  movement.  That  political  tide  which 
is  wrongly  assumed  to  be  wholly  Socialist  would  indeed  be  suddenly 
and  greatly  checked;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
Socialist  tide  proper,  as  indicated  by  growth  of  the  Socialist  Party 
membership,  would  be  checked,  nor  that  the  Socialist  vote  even, 
after  having  been  purified  of  the  accidental  accretions,  which  are 
its  greatest  hindrance,  would  rise  less  rapidly  than  before. 

The  German  Socialist  situation  is  important  internation- 
ally for  the  decisive  defeat  of  the  "revisionists,"  and  for  the 
light  it  throws  on  party  unity,  but  it  is  still  more  important 
for  the  means  that  have  been  adopted  for  preserving  that 
unity.  If  Socialist  parties  are  to  reconstruct  society,  they 
must  first  control  their  own  members  in  all  matters  of  com- 
mon concern,  especially  those  who  are  elected  to  public  office. 
For  before  a  new  society  can  arise  against  the  resistance  of 
the  old,  the  Socialist  parties,  according  to  the  prevailing 
Socialist  view,  must  form  a  "State  within  a  State." 

This  principle  is  soon  to  be  put  to  a  severe  test  in  the  United 
States.  The  policy  which  says  that  the  Socialist  movement 
must  be  directed  by  organized  Socialists,  who  can  be  taxed, 
called  on  for  labor,  or  expelled  by  the  Party,  and  not  by  mere 
voters,  over  whom  the  Party  has  no  control,  becomes  of  the 
first  moment  when  forms  and  methods  of  organization  are 
prescribed  for  all  parties  by  law.  By  the  primary  laws  of  a 
number  of  States,  anybody  who  for  any  reason  has  voted  for 
Socialist  candidates  may  henceforth  have  a  voice  not  only 
in  selecting  candidates,  but  in  forming  the  party  organiza- 
tion, and  in  constructing  its  platform.  In  some  States  even, 
any  citizen  may  vote  at  any  primary  he  pleases.  This  makes 
it  possible  for  capitalist  politicians  to  direct  or  disrupt  the 
Socialist  Party  at  any  moment,  until  the  time  arrives  when 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  271 

it  has  secured  a  majority  or  a  very  large  part  of  the  elector- 
ate, not  only  as  Socialist  voters,  but  as  members  of  the  Social- 
ist organization.  As  Socialists  do  not  expect  this  to  happen 
for  some  years  to  come,  or  until  the  social  revolution  is  at 
hand,  it  is  evident  that  this  new  legislation  may  destroy 
Socialist  parties  as  they  have  been,  and  necessitate  the 
direction  of  Socialist  politics  by  leagues  or  political  committees 
of  Socialist  labor  unions  —  while  the  present  Socialist  parties 
become  Populist  or  Labor  parties  of  the  Australian  type. 
This  might  create  a  revolution  for  the  better  in  that  it  would  free 
the  new  Socialist  organization  from  office  seeking  and  other 
forms  of  political  corruption.  But  it  would  at  the  same  time 
mark  the  complete  abandonment  of  the  present  Socialist 
method,  i.e.  the  strict  control  of  all  persons  elected  to  office 
by  an  independent  organization  which  in  turn  controls  its 
conditions  of  admission  to  membership. 

One  of  the  most  widely  circulated  of  the  leaflets  issued  from 
the  national  headquarters  of  the  American  Socialist  Party, 
entitled  "Socialist  Methods"  appeals  for  public  support 
largely  on  the  ground  that  "in  nominating  candidates  for 
public  offices  the  Socialists  require  the  nominee  to  sign  a 
resignation  of  the  office  with  blank  date,  which  is  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  local  organization  to  be  dated  and  presented 
to  the  proper  officer  in  case  the  candidate  be  elected  and 
fails  to  adhere  to  the  platform,  constitution,  or  mandates  of 
the  membership." 

The  newer  primary  laws  taken  in  connection  with  the 
recall,  as  practiced  in  many  American  cities  and  several 
States,  threaten  this  most  valuable  of  all  Socialist  methods 
and  may  even  undermine  the  Socialist  Party  as  at  present 
organized.  The  initiative  in  this  process  of  disruption  comes, 
of  course,  from  Socialist  officeholders  who  owe  either  then* 
nomination  or  their  election  or  both,  in  part  at  least,  to 
declared  non-Socialists,  and  still  more  largely  to  voters  who 
only  partially  or  occasionally  support  the  Socialist  Party 
and  have  no  connection  with  the  organization. 

Thus,  Mayor  Stitt  Wilson  of  Berkeley,  California,  has 
refused  to  comply  with  this  custom  of  executing  an  undated 
resignation  from  office  in  advance  of  election,  and  the  local 
organization  has  defended  his  action  on  the  ground  that  the 
"Berkeley  municipal  charter,  providing  as  it  does  for  the 
initiative,  referendum,  and  recall,  there  is  no  necessity  for 
any  official  placing  his  resignation  in  the  hands  of  the  local," 


272  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

ignoring  the  fact  that  a  handful  of  the  least  Socialistic  of  those 
who  had  voted  for  Mr.  Wilson  in  cooperation  with  his  oppo- 
nents could  defeat  a  recall  unanimously  indorsed  by  the 
Socialist  Party.  According  to  this  principle  a  mere  majority 
in  the  Socialist  Party  would  be  helpless  against  a  mayor 
who  is  allowed  to  make  his  appeal  to  the  far  more  numerous 
non-Socialist  and  anti-Socialist  public. 

As  the  custom  of  requiring  signed  resignations,  by  which 
alone  the  Socialist  Party  controls  its  members  in  public 
office,  is  not  yet  prescribed  by  the  Party  constitution,  local 
and  state  organizations  have  a  large  measure  of  autonomy, 
and  the  Berkeley  case  was  dropped  until  the  next  national 
convention  (1912).  But  the  action  taken  by  the  Socialists 
of  Lima,  Ohio,  indicates  that  the  Party  will  not  allow  itself 
to  be  destroyed  in  this  manner.  Mayor  Shook,  by  his 
appointment  to  office  of  non-Socialists,  and  even  of  a  promi- 
nent anti-Socialist,  caused  the  local  that  elected  him  to  present 
his  signed  resignation  to  the  city  council,  which  the  latter 
body  ignored  at  the  mayor's  request.  The  mayor  was 
promptly  expelled  from  the  Party,  and  the  Socialists  of  the 
country  have  almost  unanimously  approved  the  expulsion.  (7) 

The  comment  of  the  New  York  Call  on  this  incident 
undoubtedly  reflects  the  feeling  of  the  majority  of  the  Socialist 
Party:  — 

"Owing  to  the  multiplicity  of  elections  we  must  go  through, 
owing  to  the  peculiar  division  and  subdivision  of  the  administra- 
tive authority  in  this  country,  this  is  a  thing  we  shall  have  to  face 
with  accumulating  frequency.  But  that  the  Socialist  Party  is 
sound  on  the  theories  of  what  it  is  after,  and  on  its  own  rights  as  an  or- 
ganization, are  both  demonstrated  by  the  action  taken  by  Local  Lima. 
The  members  permanently  expelled  the  traitor.  Now  let  him  go 
ahead  and  do  what  he  can,  personally  gain  what  he  can.  He  does 
it  as  a  non-Socialist,  as  a  man  who  is  held  up  to  contempt  by  every 
decent  party  member,  and  is  probably  held  in  the  most  absolute 
contempt  by  those  who  were  able  to  seduce  him  with  such  ease. 

"At  the  present  state  of  our  development,  it  is  easy  for  a  plausible 
adventurer  to  take  advantage  of  the  Socialist  movement  and  to  use 
it  to  a  certain  point.  Where  such  an  adventurer  falls  down  never 
to  rise  again,  is  when  he  tries  '  to  deliver  the  goods  '  to  those  whom 
he  serves.  .  .  . 

"That  he  did  not  possess  even  rudimentary  honesty  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  he  prevented  his  letter  of  resignation  from  being 
received  by  the  City  Council.  This  manner  of  resignation  is  not 
and  never  has  been  with  the  Socialists  a  mere  formality.  It  is  a 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  273 

vital,  necessary  thing,  and  should  be  insisted  upon  at  all  times  and  in 
all  places.  No  man  should  go  on  the  ticket  unless  he  has  signed  the 
resignation,  and  no  man,  unless  he  is  a  scoundrel,  will  sign  it  unless 
he  intends  to  live  up  to  it. 

"There  may  be  other  Shocks  in  the  party,  but  they  should  be 
searched  out  before  nominations,  instead  of  being  permitted  to 
reveal  themselves  after  nomination."  (8) 

"The  Socialist  Party  must  conform  to  the  conditions  im- 
posed upon  other  parties,"  says  Mr.  J.  R.  MacDonald  in 
agreement  with  Mr.  Wilson's  position.  (9)  On  the  contrary, 
no  Socialist  Party  could  possibly  survive  such  an  attitude. 
It  is  only  the  refusal  to  conform  that  assures  their  continued 
existence. 

There  is  no  possibility  that  the  Socialist  parties  of  Conti- 
nental Europe  would  for  a  moment  allow  the  State  to  prescribe 
their  form  of  organization.  Kautsky  thus  describes  the 
German  and  the  French  methods  of  control :  — 

"  A  class  is  only  sure  that  its  interests  in  Parliament  will  always 
be  furthered  by  its  representatives  in  the  most  decisive  and  for  the 
time  being  most  effective  manner,  if  it  is  not  content  with  electing 
them  to  Parliament,  but  always  oversees  and  directs  their  Parlia- 
mentary activities." 

Kautsky  illustrates  this  principle  of  controlling  elected 
persons  by  referring  to  the  methods  of  labor  unions,  and 
proceeds: — 

"The  same  mass  action,  the  same  discipline,  the  same  'tyranny' 
which  characterize  the  economic  organizations  of  labor  is  also 
suitable  to  labor  parties,  and  this  discipline  applies  not  only  to  the 
masses,  it  also  applies  to  those  who  represent  them  before  the  public, 
to  its  leaders.  No  one  of  these,  no  matter  in  what  position  he  may 
be,  can  undertake  any  kind  of  political  action  against  the  will  or  even 
without  the  consent  of  his  comrades.  The  Social  Democratic  repre- 
sentative is  no  free  man  in  this  capacity,  as  burdensome  as  that  may 
sound,  but  the  delegate  of  his  party.  If  his  views  come  into  conflict 
with  theirs,  then  he  must  cease  to  be  their  representative. 

"The  present-day  Member  of  Parliament  ...  is  not  the  dele- 
gate of  his  election  district,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  not  legally, 
the  delegate  of  his  party.  But  this  is  not  true  of  any  party  to  such 
an  extent  as  it  is  of  the  Social  Democracy.  And  while  the  party 
discipline  of  the  bourgeois  parties  is,  in  truth,  the  discipline  of  a  small 
clique  which  stands  above  the  separated  masses  of  voters,  with 
the  Social  Democracy  it  is  the  discipline  of  an  organization  which 
embraces  the  whole  mass  of  the  aggressive  and  intelligent  part  of  the 


274  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

proletariat,  and  which  is  stretching  itself  more  and  more  to  embrace 
the  whole  of  the  working  class."     (My  italics.)  (10) 

In  the  introduction  to  the  same  booklet,  Kautsky  sums  up 
for  us  in  a  few  words  the  methods  in  use  in  France :  — 

"Our  French  comrades  have  created  for  the  solution  of  this  diffi- 
culty a  body  between  the  Party  Congress  and  the  Party  Executive 
like  our  Committee  of  Control,  but  different  from  the  latter  in 
that  it  counts  more  members  who  are  elected  not  by  the  Congress, 
but  directly  by  the  comrades  of  the  various  districts  which  they 
represent.  A  right  to  elect  five  members  to  the  Party  Congress  gives 
the  right  to  elect  one  member  to  the  National  Council. 

"The  National  Council  elects  from  the  twenty-two  members  of 
the  permanent  Executive  Committee  the  five  party  secretaries,  whose 
functions  are  paid.  It  conducts  the  general  propaganda,  oversees 
the  execution  of  party  decisions,  prepares  for  the  Congresses,  over- 
sees the  party  press  and  the  group  in  Parliament,  and  has  the  right 
to  undertake  all  measures  which  the  situation  at  the  moment 
demands."  (11) 

We  see  that  the  Socialist  members  of  the  national  legis- 
latures, both  in  Germany  and  France,  are  under  the  most 
rigid  control,  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  if  such  control 
becomes  impossible  on  account  of  legislation  enacted  by 
hostile  governments,  an  entirely  new  form  of  organiza- 
tion will  be  devised  by  which  the  members  of  the  Socialist 
Party  can  regain  this  power.  Either  this  will  be  done,  or 
the  "Socialist"  Party  which  continues  to  exist  in  a  form 
dictated  by  its  enemies,  will  be  Socialist  in  name  only,  and 
Socialists  will  reorganize  —  probably  along  the  lines  I  have 
suggested. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  neither  by  an  attack  from  without 
or  from  within  is  the  revolutionary  character  of  Socialism 
or  the  essential  unity  of  the  Socialist  organization  to  be  de- 
stroyed. 

The  departure  from  the  Party  of  individuals  or  factions 
that  had  not  recognized  its  true  nature,  and  were  only  there 
by  some  misunderstanding  or  by  local  or  temporary  circum- 
stances is  a  necessary  part  of  the  process  of  growth.  On  the 
contrary,  the  Party  is  damaged  only  in  case  these  individuals 
and  factions  remain  in  the  organization  and  become  a  major- 
ity. The  failure  of  those  who  represent  the  Party's  funda- 
mental principles  to  maintain  control,  might  easily  prove 
fatal ;  with  the  subordination  of  its  principles  the  movement 
would  disintegrate  from  within.  In  fact,  the  possibility  of 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY  TREND  275 

the  deliberate  wrecking  of  the  Party  in  such  circumstances, 
by  enemies  within  its  own  ranks,  has  been  pointed  out  and 
greatly  feared  by  Liebknecht  and  other  representative  Social- 
ists. This  tendency,  however,  seems  to  be  subsiding  in 
those  countries  in  which  the  movement  is  most  highly  de- 
veloped, such  as  Germany  and  France. 


PART  III 
SOCIALISM  IN  ACTION 

CHAPTER  I 
SOCIALISM  AND  THE  "CLASS  STRUGGLE" 

SOCIALISTS  have  always  taught  that  Socialism  can  develop 
only  out  of  the  full  maturity  of  capitalism,  and  so  favor  the 
normal  advance  of  capitalist  industry  and  government  and 
the  reforms  of  capitalist  collectivism  —  on  their  constructive 
side.  But  if  capitalism  in  its  highest  form  of  "State  Social- 
ism" is  the  only  foundation  upon  which  the  Socialism  can 
be  built,  it  is  at  the  same  time  that  form  of  capitalism  which 
will  prevail  when  Socialism  reaches  maturity  and  is  ready  for 
decisive  action ;  and  it  is,  therefore,  the  very  enemy  against 
which  the  Socialist  hosts  will  have  been  drilled  and  the  So- 
cialist tactics  evolved. 

The  older  capitalism,  which  professed  to  oppose  all  indus- 
trial activities  of  the  government,  must  disappear,  but  it  is 
not  the  object  of  attack,  for  the  capitalists  themselves  will 
abandon  it  without  Socialist  intervention  in  any  form. 
Socialists  have  urged  on  this  evolution  from  the  older  to  the 
newer  capitalism  by  taking  the  field  against  the  reactionaries, 
but  they  do  not,  as  a  rule,  claim  that  by  this  action  they  are 
doing  any  more  for  Socialism  than  they  are  for  progressive 
capitalism. 

Socialism  can  only  do  what  capitalism,  after  it  has  reached 
its  culmination  in  State  capitalism,  leaves  undone;  namely, 
to  take  effective  measures  to  establish  equal  opportunity 
and  abolish  class  government.  To  accomplish  this,  Socialists 
realize  they  must  reckon  with  the  resistance  of  every  element 
of  society  that  enjoys  superior  opportunities  or  profits  from 
capitalist  government,  and  they  must  know  just  which  these 
elements  are.  It  must  be  decided  which  of  the  non-privileged 
classes  are  to  be  ^permanently  relied  upon  in  the  fight  for 
this  great  change,"  to  what  point  each  will  be  ready  to  go, 

276 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE "„     277 

and  of  what  effective  action  it  is  capable.  Next,  the  classes 
upon  which  it  is  decided  to  rely  must  be  brought  together 
and  organized.  And,  finally,  the  individual  members  of  these 
classes  must  be  developed,  by  education  and  social  struggles, 
until  they  are  able  to  overcome  the  resistance  of  the  classes 
now  in  control  of  industry  and  government. 

The  popular  conviction  that  the  very  existence  of  social 
classes  is  in  complete  contradiction  with  the  principles  of 
democracy,  no  amount  of  contrary  teaching  has  been  able 
to  blot  out.  What  has  not  been  so  clearly  seen  is  the  active 
and  constant  resistance  of  the  privileged  classes  to  popular 
government  and  industrial  democracy,  i.e  the  class  struggle. 

"We  have  long  rested  comfortably  in  this  country  on  the 
assumption,"  says  Senator  La  Follette,  "that  because  our 
form  of  government  was  democratic,  it  was  therefore  auto- 
matically producing  democratic  results.  Now  there  is  noth- 
ing mysteriously  potent  about  the  forms  and  names  of  demo- 
cratic institutions  that  should  make  them  self-operative. 
Tyranny  and  oppression  are  just  as  possible  under  democratic 
forms  as  under  any  other.  We  are  slowly  realizing  that 
democracy  is  a  life,  and  involves  continual  struggle."  (1) 

Senator  La  Follette  fails  only  to  note  that  this  struggle 
to  make  democracy  a  reality  is  not  a  struggle  in  the  heart  of 
the  individual,  but  between  groups  of  individuals,  that  these 
groups  are  not  formed  by  differences  of  temperament  or 
opinion,  but  by  economic  interests,  and  that  nearly  every 
group  falls  into  one  of  two  great  classes,  those  whose  interests 
are  with  and  those  whose  interests  are  against  the  capital- 
ists and  capitalist  government. 

Why  is  the  sinister  role  of  the  upper  classes  not  univer- 
sally grasped  ?  Because  the  ideas  and  teachings  of  former 
generations  still  survive,  however  much  contradicted  by 
present  developments.  At  the  time  of  the  American  and 
French  Revolutions  and  for  nearly  a  century  afterwards, 
when  political  democracy  was  first  securing  a  world-wide 
acceptance  as  an  ideal,  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  creed  which 
had  only  to  be  mentally  accepted  in  order  to  be  forthwith 
applied  to  life.  The  only  forces  of  resistance  were  thought 
to  be  due  to  the  ignorance  or  possibly  to  the  unregenerate 
moral  character  of  the  unconverted.  The  democratic  faith 
was  accepted  and  propagated  by  the  French  and  others 
almost  exactly  as  religion  had  been.  As  late  as  the  middle 
of  the  last  century  this  conception  of  democracy,  due  to  the 


278  SOCIALISM   AS   IT    IS 

wide  diffusion  of  small  and  in  many  localities  approximately 
equal  farms  and  small  businesses,  continued  to  prevail. 

About  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  first  ad- 
vance was  made.  It  became  recognized  with  the  coming  of 
railroads  and  steamships  that  society  could  never  become 
fixed  as  a  Utopia  or  in  any  other  form,  but  must  always  be 
subject  to  change,  —  and  the  ideal  of  social  evolution  gained 
a  considerable  acceptance  even  before  the  evolution  theory 
had  been  generally  applied  to  biology.  It  was  seen  that  if 
the  ideal  of  democracy  was  to  become  a  reality,  a  certain  degree 
of  intellectual  and  material  development  was  required,  —  but 
it  was  thought  that  this  development  was  at  hand.  It  was 
a  period  when  wealth  was  rapidly  becoming  more  equally 
distributed,  when  plenty  of  free  land  remained,  and  when  it 
was  commonly  supposed  that  universal  free  trade  and  uni- 
versal peace  were  about  to  dawn  upon  the  nations,  and  equal 
opportunity,  if  not  yet  achieved,  was  not  far  away.  The 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  progress  were  not  the  resistance  of 
privileged  classes,  but  the  time  and  labor  required  for  man- 
kind to  conquer  the  world  and  nature.  With  the  establish- 
ment of  so-called  democratic  and  constitutional  republics 
in  the  place  of  monarchies  and  landlord  aristocracies,  and  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States,  all  systematic 
opposition  to  social  progress,  except  in  the  minds  of  a  few  per- 
verted or  criminal  individuals,  was  supposed  to  be  at  an  end. 

A  generation  or  two  ago,  then,  though  it  was  now  recog- 
nized that  the  golden  age  could  not  be  attained  immediately 
by  merely  converting  the  majority  to  a  wise  and  beneficent 
social  system  (as  had  been  proposed  in  the  first  half  of  the 
century),  yet  it  was  thought  that,  with  the  advance  of  science 
and  the  conquest  of  nature,  and  without  any  serious  civil 
strife,  "equality  of  opportunity"  was  being  gradually  and 
rapidly  brought  to  all  mankind.  This  state  of  mind  has 
survived  and  is  still  that  of  the  majority  to-day,  when  the 
conditions  that  have  given  rise  to  it  have  disappeared. 

Not  all  previous  history  has  a  greater  economic  change  to 
show  than  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  which 
converted  all  the  leading  countries  from  nations  of  small 
capitalists  into  nations  of  hired  employees.  Even  such  a 
far-sighted  and  broad-minded  statesman  as  Lincoln,  for 
example,  had  no  idea  of  the  future  of  his  country,  and  regarded 
the  slaveowners  and  their  supporters  as  the  only  classes  that 
dreamed  that  we  could  ever  become  a  nation  of  "hired 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE':      279 

laborers"  (the  capitalism  of  to-day),  any  more  than  we  could 
remain  in  part  a  nation  of  "bought  laborers."  Lincoln 
puts  a  society  based  on  hired  labor  in  the  same  class  with  a 
society  based  on  owned  labor,  on  the  ground  that  both  lead 
to  an  effort  "to  place  capital  on  an  equal  footing,  if  not  above 
labor  in  the  structure  of  the  government."  This  effort, 
marked  by  the  proposal  of  "the  abridgment  of  the  existing 
right  of  suffrage  and  the  denial  to  the  people  of  the  right  to 
participate  in  the  selection  of  public  officers  except  the  legis- 
lative" (so  similar  to  tendencies  prevailing  to-day),  he  calls 
"returning  despotism."  And  so  inevitable  did  it  seem  to 
Lincoln  that  a  nation  based  on  hired  labor  would  evolve  a 
despotic  government,  that  he  fell  back  on  the  fact  that  the 
population  was  composed  chiefly  not  of  laborers,  but  of  small 
capitalists,  and  would  probably  remain  so  constituted,  as 
the  only  convincing  ground  that  our  political  democracy 
would  last.  In  a  word,  our  greatest  statesman  recognized 
that  our  political  democracy  and  liberty  were  based  on  the 
wide  distribution  of  the  land  and  other  forms  of  capital. 
(See  Lincoln's  Message  of  December  3,  1861.)  If  Lincoln 
foresaw  no  class  struggle  between  "hired  labor"  and  the 
"returning  despotism,"  this  was  only  because  he  mistakenly 
expected  that  the  nation  would  continue  to  consist  chiefly  of 
small  capitalists.  Yet  his  conclusions  and  those  of  his  con- 
temporaries, so  clearly  limited  to  conditions  that  have  passed 
away,  are  taught  like  a  gospel  to  the  children  in  our  public 
schools  to-day. 

The  present  generation,  however,  is  slowly  realizing,  through 
the  development  of  organized  capitalism  in  industry  and  gov- 
ernment, and  the  increase  of  hired  laborers,  that  it  is  not 
nature  alone  that  civilization  must  contend  against,  not 
merely  ignorance  or  poverty  or  the  backwardness  of  material 
development,  but,  more  important  than  all  these,  the  sys- 
tematic opposition  of  the  employing  and  governing  classes 
to  every  program  of  improvement,  except  that  which  promises 
still  further  to  increase  their  own  wealth  and  power. 

The  Socialist  view  of  the  evolution  of  society  is  that  the 
central  fact  of  history  is  this  struggle  of  classes  for  political 
and  economic  power.  -The  governing  class  of  any  society  or 
period,  Marx  taught,  consists  of  the  economic  exploiters, 
the  governed  class  of  the  economically  exploited.  The 
governing  class  becomes  more  and  more  firmly  established 
in  power,  until  it  begins  to  stagnate,  but  the  machinery  of 


280  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

production  continues  to  evolve,  and  falls  gradually  into  the 
hands  of  some  exploited  element  which  is  able  to  use  this 
economic  advantage  as  a  means  for  overthrowing  its  rulers. 
Marx  felt  that  with  the  vast  revolution  in  society  marked 
by  modern  science  and  modern  machinery,  the  time  is  fast 
approaching  when  the  exploited  classes  of  to-day  will  be  able 
to  overthrow  the  present  ruling  class,  the  capitalists,  and  at 
the  same  time  establish  an  industrial  democracy,  where  all 
class  oppression  will  be  brought  to  an  end. 

However  his  predictions  may  turn  out  in  the  future, 
Marx's  view  of  the  past  is  rapidly  gaining  ground  and  is 
possibly  accepted  by  the  majority  of  those  most  competent 
to  speak  on  these  questions  to-day,  including  many  leading 
economists  and  sociologists  and  prominent  figures  in  practical 
political  life.  Winston  Churchill,  for  example,  says  that  "the 
differences  between  class  and  class  have  been  even  aggravated 
in  the  passage  of  years,"  that  while  "the  richer  classes  [are] 
ever  growing  in  wealth  and  in  numbers,  and  ever  declining 
in  responsibility,  the  very  poor  remain  plunged  or  plunging 
even  deeper  into  helpless,  hopeless  misery."  This  being  the 
case,  he  predicts  "a  savage  strife  between  class  and  class," 
unless  the  most  radical  measures  are  taken  to  check  the 
tendency.  Nor  are  his  statements  mere  rhetoric,  for  he 
shows  statistically  "that  the  increase  of  income  assessable 
to  income  tax  is  at  the  very  least  more  than  ten  times  greater 
than  the  increase  which  has  taken  place  in  the  same  period 
in  the  wages  of  those  trades  which  come  within  the  Board 
of  Trade  returns."  (2)  In  other  words,  the  income  of  the 
well-to-do  classes  (which  increased  nearly  half  a  billion 
pounds,  that  is,  almost  doubled,  in  ten  years)  is  growing  ten 
times  more  rapidly  than  that  even  of  the  organized  and  better 
paid  workmen,  who  alone  are  considered  in  the  Board  of 
Trade  returns. 

Here  is  a  situation  which  is  world-wide.  The  position  of 
the  working  class,  or  certain  parts  of  it,  may  be  improving  ; 
the  income  of  the  employing  and  capitalist  class  is  certainly 
increasing  many  fold  more  rapidly.  Here  is  the  financial 
expression  of  the  gorwing  divergence  of  classes  which  Marx 
had  in  mind,  a  divergence  that  we  have  no  reason  whatever  for 
supposing  will  be  checked,  as  Mr.  Churchill  suggests,  even  by 
his  most  "Socialistic"  reforms,  short  of  surrendering  the  polit- 
ical and  economic  power  to  those  who  suffer  from  this  condition. 

At  the  German  Socialist  Congress  at  Hanover  in  1899, 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  ."CLASS  STRUGGLE.'.'      281 

Bebel  said  that  even  if  the  income  of  the  working  class  was 
increasing,  or  even  if  the  purchasing  power  of  total  wages 
was  becoming  greater,  the  income  of  the  nation  as  a  whole 
was  increasing  much  more  rapidly  and  that  of  the  capitalist 
class  at  a  still  more  rapid  rate.  The  great  Socialist  statesman 
laid  emphasis  on  the  essential  point  that  capitalists  are 
absorbing  continually  a  greater  and  a  greater  proportion  of 
the  national  income. 

The  class  struggle,  says  Kautsky,  rests  not  upon  the  fact 
that  the  misery  of  the  proletariat  is  growing  greater,  but  on 
its  need  to  annihilate  a  pressure  that  it  feels  more  and  more 
keenly. 

"The  class  struggle,"  he  writes,  "becomes  more  bitter  the 
longer  it  lasts.  The  more  capable  of  struggle  the  opponents 
become  in  and  through  the  struggle  itself,  the  more  important 
become  the  differences  in  their  conditions  of  life,  the  more  the 
capitalists  raise  themselves  above  the  proletariat  by  the  ever 
growing  exploitation."  (3) 

This  feature  of  present-day  (capitalistic)  progress,  Social- 
ists view  as  the  very  essence  of  social  injustice,  no  matter 
whether  there  is  a  slight  and  continuous  or  even  a  considerable 
progress  of  the  working  class.  The  question  for  them  is  not 
whether  from  time  to  time  something  more  falls  to  the  work- 
ingman,  but  what  proportion  he  gets  of  the  total  product. 
It  would  never  occur  to  any  one  to  try  to  tell  a  business  man 
that  he  ought  not  to  sell  any  more  goods  because  his  profits 
were  already  increasing  "fast  enough."  It  is  as  absurd  to 
tell  the  workingman  that  the  moderate  advance  he  is  making 
either  through  slight  improvements  as  to  wages  and  hours, 
or  through  political  and  social  reforms,  ought  to  blind  him  to 
all  the  possibilities  of  modern  civilization  from  which  he  is 
still  shut  off,  and  which  will  remain  out  of  his  reach  for  genera- 
tions, unless  his  share  in  the  income  of  society  is  rapidly 
increased  to  the  point  that  he  (and  other  non-capitalist 
producers)  receive  the  total  product. 

The  conflict  of  class  interests  is  not  a  mere  theory,  but  a 
widely  recognized  reality,  and  the  worst  accusation  that  can 
be  made  against  Socialists  is  not  that  they  are  trying  to 
create  a  war  of  classes  where  none  exists,  but  that  some  of 
them  at  times  interpret  the  conflict  in  a  narrow  or  violent 
sense  (I  shall  discuss  the  truth  or  untruth  of  this  criticism  in 
later  chapters).  Yet  Mr.  Roosevelt  voices  the  opinion  of 
many  when  he  calls  the  view  that  the  maximum  of  progress 


282  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

is  to  be  secured  only  after  a  struggle  between  the  classes, 
the  "most  mischievous  of  Socialist  theses,"  says  that  an 
appeal  to  class  interest  is  not  "legitimate,"  and  that  the 
Socialists  hope  "in  one  shape  or  another  to  profit  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  other  citizens  of  the  Republic."  (4) 

"There  is  no  greater  need  to-day,"  said  Mr.  Roosevelt  in 
his  Sorbonne  lecture,  "than  the  need  to  keep  ever  in  mind 
the  fact  that  the  cleavage  between  right  and  wrong,  between 
good  citizenship  and  bad  citizenship,  runs  at  right  angles  to, 
not  parallel  to,  the  lines  of  cleavage  between  class  and  class, 
between  occupation  and  occupation.  Ruin  looks  us  in  the 
face  if  we  judge  a  man  by  his  position  instead  of  judging  him 
by  his  conduct  in  that  position." 

This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  there  are  only  individuals, 
but  no  class,  which  it  is  better  to  have  outside  than  inside  of 
a  progressive  majority.  The  Socialist  view  is  the  exact 
opposite.  It  holds  that  the  very  foundation  of  Socialism 
as  a  method  (which  is  its  only  aspect  of  practical  importance) 
is  that  the  Socialist  movement  assumes  a  position  so  militant 
and  radical  that  every  privileged  class  will  voluntarily  remain 
on  the  outside ;  and  events  are  showing  the  wisdom  and  even 
the  necessity  of  these  tactics.  Socialists  would  say,  "Ruin 
looks  us  in  the  face  if,  in  politics,  we  judge  the  men  who  occupy 
a  certain  position  (the  members  of  a  certain  class)  by  their 
conduct  as  individuals,  instead  of  judging  them  by  the  fact 
that  they  occupy  a  certain  position  and  are  members  of  a 
certain  class." 

Again,  to  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  at  New  Haven,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  expressed  a  view  which,  to  judge  by  their  actions, 
is  that  of  all  non-Socialist  reformers:  "I  am  a  radical,"  he 
said,  "who  most  earnestly  desires  to  see  a  radical  platform 
carried  out  by  conservatives.  I  wish  to  see  great  industrial 
reforms  carried  out,  not  by  the  men  who  will  profit  by  them, 
but  by  the  men  who  will  lose  by  them ;  by  such  men  as  you 
are  around  me." 

Socialists,  on  the  contrary,  believe  that  industrial  reforms 
will  never  lead  to  equality  of  opportunity  except  when  carried 
out  wholly  independently  of  the  conservatives  who  will  lose 
by  them.  They  believe  that  such  reforms  as  are  carried  out 
by  the  capitalists  and  their  governments,  beneficent,  radical, 
and  even  stupendous  as  they  may  be,  will  not  and  cannot 
constitute  the  first  or  smallest  step  towards  industrial 
democracy. 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE"      283 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  views  are  identical  on  this  point  with  those 
of  Mr.  Woodrow  Wilson  and  other  progressive  leaders  of  the 
opposite  party.  Mayor  Gaynor  of  New  York,  for  example, 
was  quoted  explaining  the  great  changes  that  took  place  in 
the  fall  elections  of  1910  on  these  grounds  :  "We  are  emerging 
from  an  evil  case.  The  flocking  of  nearly  all  the  business 
men,  owners  of  property,  and  even  persons  with  $100  in  the 
savings  bank,  to  one  party  made  a  division  line  and  created 
a  contrast  which  must  have  led  to  trouble  if  much  longer 
continued.  The  intelligence  of  the  country  is  asserting  itself, 
and  business  men  and  property  owners  will  again  divide  them- 
selves normally  between  the  parties,  as  formerly."  Here 
again  is  the  fundamental  antithesis  to  the  Socialist  view. 
Leaving  aside  for  the  moment  the  situation  of  persons  with 
$100  in  the  savings  bank,  or  owners  of  property  in  general  (who 
might  possess  nothing  more  than  a  small  home),  Socialists 
are  working,  with  considerable  success,  towards  the  day  when 
at  least  one  great  party  will  take  a  position  so  radical  that 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  business  men  (or  at  least  the 
representatives  of  by  far  the  larger  part  of  business  and 
capital)  will  be  forced  automatically  into  the  opposite  or- 
ganization. 

Without  this  militant  attitude  Socialists  believe  that  even 
the  most  radical  reforms,  not  excepting  those  that  sincerely 
propose  equal  opportunity  or  the  abolition  of  social  classes 
as  their  ultimate  aim,  must  fail  to  carry  society  forward  a 
single  step  in  that  direction.  Take,  as  an  example,  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott,  whose  advanced  views  I  have  already  referred  to 
(see  Part  I,  Chap.  III).  Notwithstanding  his  advocacy  of  in- 
dustrial democracy,  his  attack  on  the  autocracy  of  capitalism 
and  the  wages  system,  and  his  insistence  that  the  distinction 
between  non-possessing  and  possessing  classes  must  be  abol- 
ished, Dr.  Abbott  opposes  a  class  struggle.  Such  phrases 
amount  to  nothing  from  the  Socialist  standpoint,  if  all  of  these 
objects  are  held  up  merely  as  an  ideal,  and  if  nothing  is  said  of 
the  rate  at  which  they  ought  to  be  attained  or  the  means  by 
which  the  opposition  of  privileged  classes  is  to  be  overcome. 
No  indorsement  of  any  so-called  Socialist  theory  or  reform  is 
of  practical  moment  unless  it  includes  that  theory  which  has 
survived  out  of  the  struggles  of  the  movement,  and  has  been 
tested  by  hard  experience  —  a  theory  in  which  ways  and 
means  are  not  the  last  but  the  first  consideration,  —  namely, 
the  class  struggle. 


284  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Mr.  Roosevelt  and  nearly  all  other  popular  leaders  of  the 
day  denounce  "special  privilege."  But  the  denouncers  of 
special  privilege,  aside  from  the  organized  Socialists,  are  only 
too  glad  to  associate  themselves  with  one  or  another  of  the 
classes  that  at  present  possess  the  economic  and  political 
power.  To  the  Socialists  the  only  way  to  fight  special  priv- 
ilege is  to  place  the  control  of  society  in  the  hands  of  a  non- 
privileged  majority.  The  practical  experience  of  the  movement 
has  taught  the  truth  of  what  some  of  its  early  exponents  saw 
at  the  outset,  that  a  majority  composed  even  in  part  of  the 
privileged  classes  could  never  be  trusted  or  expected  to  abolish 
privileges.  Neither  Dr.  Abbott,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  nor  other 
opponents  of  the  Socialist  movement,  are  ready  to  indorse 
this  practical  working  theory.  For  its  essence  being  that  all 
those  who  by  their  economic  expressions  or  their  acts  stand 
for  anything  less  than  equality  of  opportunity  should  be 
removed  from  positions  of  power,  it  is  directed  against  every 
anti-Socialist.  Dr.  Abbott,  for  example,  demands  only  "op- 
portunity," instead  of  equal  opportunity,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt 
wishes  merely  "to  start  all  men  in  the  race  for  life  on  a 
reasonable  equality."  (My  italics.)  (5) 

Let  us  see  what  Marx  and  his  successors  say  in  explanation 
of  their  belief  that  the  "class  struggle"  must  be  fought  out 
to  an  end.  Certainly  they  do  not  mean  that  each  individual 
capitalist  is  to  be  regarded  by  his  working  people  as  their 
private  enemy.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  the  expression 
"class  struggle"  be  interpreted,  as  some  Socialists  have 
asserted,  to  mean  that  there  was  no  flesh  and  blood  enemy 
to  be  attacked,  but  only  "the  capitalist  system."  To 
Marx  capitalism  was  embodied  not  merely  in  institutions, 
which  embrace  all  classes  and  individuals  alike,  but  also  in 
the  persons  of  the  capitalist  class.  And  by  waging  a  war 
against  that  class  he  meant  to  include  each  and  every  mem- 
ber of  it  who  remained  in  his  class,  and  every  one  of  its  sup- 
porters. To  Marx  the  enemy  was  no  abstraction.  It  was, 
as  he  said,  "the  person,  the  living  individual"  that  had  to  be 
contended  with,  but  only  as  the  embodiment  of  a  class.  "It 
is  not  sufficient,"  he  said,  "to  fight  the  general  conditions  and 
the  higher  powers.  The  press  must  make  up  its  mind  to 
oppose  this  constable,  this  attorney,  this  councilor."  (6) 
These  individuals,  moreover,  he  viewed  not  merely  as  the 
servants  or  representatives  of  a  system,  but  as  part  and  parcel 
of  a  class. 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE'.'      285 

The  struggle  that  Marx  had  in  mind  might  be  called  a 
latent  civil  war.  It  was  not  a  mere  preparation  for  revolution, 
since  it  was  as  real  and  serious  in  times  of  peace  as  in  those 
of  revolution  or  civil  war.  But  it  was  a  civil  war  in  every- 
thing except  the  actual  physical  fighting,  and  he  was  al- 
ways ready  to  proceed  to  actual  fighting  when  necessary. 
Throughout  his  life  Marx  was  a  revolutionist.  And  when  his 
successors  to-day  speak  of  "the  class  struggle,"  they  mean  a 
conflict  of  that  depth  and  intensity  that  it  may  lead  to  rev- 
olution. 

None  of  the  classical  Socialist  writers,  however,  has  failed 
to  grasp  the  absolute  necessity  to  a  successful  social  move- 
ment, and  especially  to  a  revolutionary  one,  of  making  the 
class  struggle  broad,  inclusive,  and  democratic.  In  1851 
Marx  wrote  to  the  Socialists:  "The  forces  opposed  to  you 
have  all  the  advantages  of  organization,  discipline,  and  habit- 
ual authority;  unless  you  bring  strong  odds  against  them 
you  are  defeated  and  ruined."  (The  italics  are  mine.) 

Edward  Bernstein,  while  representing  as  a  rule  only  the 
ultra-moderate  element  of  the  Party,  expresses  on  this  ques- 
tion the  views  of  the  majority  as  well.  "Social  Democracy," 
he  says,  "cannot  further  its  work  better  than  by  taking  its 
stand  unreservedly  on  the  theory  of  democracy."  And  he 
adds  that  in  practice  it  has  always  favored  cooperation  with 
all  the  exploited,  even  if  "its  literary  advocates  have  often 
acted  otherwise,  and  still  often  do  so  to-day." 

Not  many  years  ago,  it  is  true,  there  was  still  a  great  deal 
of  talk  in  Germany  about  the  desirability  of  a  "dictatorship 
of  the  proletariat,"  the  term  "  proletariat  "  being  used  in  its 
narrow  sense.  That  is,  as  soon  as  the  working  class  (in  this 
sense)  became  a  political  majority,  it  was  to  make  the  gov- 
ernment embody  its  will  without  reference  to  other  classes  — 
it  being  assumed  that  the  manual  laborers  will  only  demand 
justice  for  all  men  alike,  and  that  it  was  neither  safe  nor 
necessary  to  consult  any  of  the  middle  classes.  And  even 
to-day  in  France  much  is  said  by  the  "  syndicalists"  and 
others  as  to  the  power  of  well-organized  and  determined 
minorities  in  the  time  of  revolution —  it  being  assumed,  again, 
that  such  minorities  will  be  successful  only  in  so  far  as  they 
stand  for  a  new  social  principle,  to  the  ultimate  interest  of 
all  (see  Chapter  V).  It  cannot  be  questioned  that  in  these 
schemes  the  majority  is  not  to  be  consulted.  But  they 


286  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

are  far  less  widely  prevalent  than  they  were  a  generation 
ago. 

The  pioneer  of  "reformist"  Socialism  in  Germany  (Bern- 
stein) correctly  defines  democracy,  not  as  the  rule  of  the 
majority,  but  as  "an  absence  of  class  government."  "This 
negative  definition  has,"  he  says,  "the  advantage  that  it  gives 
less  room  than  the  phrase  'government  by  the  people'  to  the 
idea  of  oppression  of  the  individual  by  the  majority,  which  is 
absolutely  repugnant  to  the  modern  mind.  To-day  we  find 
the  oppression  of  the  minority  by  the  majority '  undemocratic/ 
although  it  was  originally  held  up  to  be  quite  consistent  with 
government  by  the  people.  .  .  .  Democracy  is  in  principle 
the  suppression  of  class  government,  though  it  is  not  yet  the 
actual  suppression  of  classes."  (7) 

Democracy,  as  we  have  hitherto  known  it,  opposes  class 
government,  but  countenances  the  existence  of  classes. 
Socialism  insists  that  as  long  as  social  classes  exist,  class 
government  will  continue.  The  aim  of  Socialism,  "the  end 
of  class  struggles  and  class  rule,"  is  not  only  democratic,  but 
the  only  means  of  giving  democracy  any  real  meaning. 

"It  is  only  the  proletariat"  (wage  earners),  writes  Kautsky, 
"that  has  created  a  great  social  ideal,  the  consummation  of 
which  will  leave  only  one  source  of  income,  i.e.  labor,  will 
abolish  rent  and  profit,  will  put  an  end  to  class  and  other  con- 
flicts, and  put  in  the  place  of  the  class  struggle  the  solidarity 
of  man.  This  is  the  final  aim  and  goal  of  the  class  struggle  by 
the  Socialist  Party.  The  political  representatives  of  the  class 
interests  of  the  proletariat  thus  become  representative  of  the 
highest  and  most  general  interests  of  humanity."  (8) 

It  is  expected  that  nearly  all  social  classes,  though  separated 
into  several  groups  to-day,  will  ultimately  be  thrown  to- 
gether by  economic  evolution  and  common  interests  into  two 
large  groups,  the  capitalists  and  their  allies  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  anti-capitalists  on  the  other.  The  final  and  com- 
plete victory  of  the  latter,  it  is  believed,  can  alone  put  an  end 
to  this  great  conflict.  But  in  the  meanwhile,  even  before 
our  capitalist  society  is  overthrown  and  class  divisions  ended, 
the  very  fusing  together  of  the  several  classes  that  compose 
the  anti-capitalist  party  is  bringing  about  a  degree  of  social 
harmony  not  seen  before. 

Already  the  Socialists  have  succeeded  in  this  way  in  har- 
monizing a  large  number  of  conflicting  class  interests.  The 
skilled  workingmen  were  united  for  the  first  time  with  the 


SOCIALISM   AND   THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE"     287 

unskilled  when  the  latter,  having  been  either  ignored  or  sub- 
ordinated in  the  early  trade  unions,  were  admitted  on  equal 
terms  into  the  Socialist  parties.  Then  the  often  extremely 
discontented  salaried  and  professional  men  of  small  incomes, 
having  been  won  by  Socialist  philosophy,  laid  aside  their 
sense  of  superiority  to  the  wage  earners  and  were  absorbed 
in  large  numbers.  Later,  many  agricultural  laborers  and 
even  agriculturists  who  did  all  their  own  work,  and  whose 
small  capital  brought  them  no  return,  began  to  conquer  their 
suspicion  of  the  city  wage  workers.  And,  finally,  many  of 
those  small  business  men  and  independent  farmers,  the  larger 
part  of  whose  income  is  to  be  set  down  as  the  direct  result 
of  their  own  labor  and  not  a  result  of  their  ownership  of 
a  small  capital,  or  who  feel  that  they  are  being  reduced  to 
such  a  condition,  are  commencing  in  many  instances  to  look 
upon  themselves  as  non-capitalists  rather  than  capitalists  — 
and  to  work  for  equality  of  opportunity  through  the  Socialist 
movement. 

The  process  of  building  up  a  truly  democratic  society  has 
two  parts  :  first,  the  organization  and  union  in  a  single  move- 
ment of  all  classes  that  stand  for  the  abolition  of  classes,  and 
class  rule  ;  and  second,  the  overthrow  of  those  social  elements 
that  stand  in  the  way  of  this  natural  evolution,  their  destruc- 
tion and  dissolution  as  classes,  and  the  absorption  of  their 
members  by  the  new  society  as  individuals. 

It  becomes  of  the  utmost  importance  in  such  a  vast  struggle, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  no  classes  that  are  needed  in  the  new 
society  shall  be  marked  for  destruction,  and  on  the  other  that 
the  movement  shall  not  lean  too  heavily  or  exclusively  on 
classes  which  have  very  little  or  too  little  constructive  or 
combative  power.  What,  then,  is  the  leading  principle  by 
which  the  two  groups  are  to  be  made  up  and  distinguished  ? 
Neither  the  term  "capitalist  classes"  nor  the  term  "working 
classes"  is  entirely  clear  or  entirely  satisfactory. 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  for  example,  gives  the  common  impression 
when  he  accuses  the  Socialists  of  using  the  term  "working 
class"  in  the  narrow  sense  and  of  taking  the  position  that  " all 
wealth  is  produced  by  manual  workers,  that  the  entire  prod- 
uct of  labor  should  be  handed  over  to  the  laborer."  (9) 
I  shall  show  that  Socialist  writers  and  speakers,  even  when 
they  use  the  expression  "working  class,"  almost  universally 
include  others  than  the  manual  laborers  among  those  they 
expect  to  make  up  the  anti-capitalistic  movement. 


288  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Kautsky's  definition  of  the  working  class,  for  example,  is : 
"Workers  who  are  divorced  from  their  power  of  production 
to  the  extent  that  they  can  produce  nothing  by  their  own 
efforts,  and  are  therefore  compelled  in  order  to  escape  star- 
vation to  sell  the  only  commodity  they  possess  —  their 
labor  power."  In  present-day  society,  especially  in  a  rich 
country  like  America,  it  is  as  a  rule  not  sheer  "starvation" 
that  drives,  but  needs  of  other  kinds  that  are  almost  as  com- 
pelling. But  the  point  I  am  concerned  with  now  is  that  this 
definition,  widely  accepted  by  Socialists,  draws  no  line  what- 
ever between  manual  and  intellectual  workers.  In  another 
place  Kautsky  refers  to  the  industrial  working  class  as  being 
the  recruiting  ground  for  Socialism,  which  might  seem  to  be 
giving  a  preferred  position  to  manual  workers;  but  a  few 
paragraphs  below  he  again  qualifies  his  statement  by  adding 
that  "to  the  working  class  there  belong,  just  as  much  as  the 
wage  earners,  the  members  of  the  new  middle  class,"  which  I 
shall  describe  below.  (10) 

In  other  statements  of  their  position,  it  is  the  context 
which  makes  the  Socialist  meaning  clear.  The  party  Plat- 
form of  Canada,  for  instance,  uses  throughout  the  simple 
term  "  working  class,"  without  any  explanation,  but  it  speaks 
of  the  struggle  as  taking  place  against  the  "capitalists," 
and  as  it  mentions  no  other  classes,  the  reader  is  left  to  divide 
all  society  between  these  two,  which  would  evidently  make 
it  necessary  to  classify  many  besides  mere  manual  wage 
earners  rather  among  the  anti-capitalist  than  among  the 
capitalist  forces. 

The  platform  of  the  American  Socialist  Party  in  1904 
divided  the  population  between  the  "capitalists,"  and  the 
"working  or  producing  class."  "Between  these  two  classes," 
says  this  platform,  "there  can  be  no  possible  compromise  .  .  . 
except  in  the  conscious  and  complete  triumph  of  the  working 
class  as  the  only  class  that  has  the  right  or  power  to  be." 

"By  working  people,"  said  Liebknecht,  "we  do  not  under- 
stand merely  the  manual  workers,  but  every  one  who  does  not 
live  on  the  labor  of  another."  His  words  should  be  memorized 
by  all  those  who  wish  to  understand  the  first  principles  of 
Socialism  :  — 

"Some  maintain,  it  is  true,  that  the  wage-earning  proletariat  is 
the  only  really  revolutionary  class,  that  it  alone  forms  the  Socialist 
army,  and  that  we  ought  to  regard  with  suspicion  all  adherents  be- 
longing to  other  classes  or  other  conditions  of  life.  Fortunately 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE"      289 

these  senseless  ideas  have  never  taken  hold  of  the  German  Social 
Democracy. 

"The  wage-earning  class  is  most  directly  affected  by  capitalist 
exploitation ;  it  stands  face  to  face  with  those  who  exploit  it,  and  it 
has  the  especial  advantage  of  being  concentrated  in  the  factories  and 
yards,  so  that  it  is  naturally  led  to  think  things  out  more  energet- 
ically and  finds  itself  automatically  organized  into  'battalions  of 
workers.'  This  state  of  things  gives  it  a  revolutionary  character 
which  no  other  part  of  society  has  to  the  same  degree.  We  must 
recognize  this  frankly. 

"Every  wage  earner  is  either  a  Socialist  already,  or  he  is  on  the 
high  road  to  becoming  one. 

"We  must  not  limit  our  conception  of  the  term  'working  class' 
too  narrowly.  As  we  have  explained  in  speeches,  tracts,  and  articles, 
we  include  in  the  working  class  all  those  who  live  exclusively  or 
principally  by  means  of  their  own  labor,  and  who  do  not  grow  rich 
from  the  work  of  others. 

"Thus,  besides  the  wage  earners,  we  should  include  in  the  work- 
ing class  the  small  farmers  and  small  shop  keepers,  who  tend  more 
and  more  to  drop  to  the  level  of  the  proletariat  —  in  other  words, 
all  those  who  suffer  from  our  present  system  of  production  on  a  large 
scale."  (My  italics.) 

The  chief  questions  now  confronting  the  Socialists  are  all 
connected,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  these  producing  middle 
classes,  who,  on  the  whole,  do  not  live  on  the  labor  of  others 
and  suffer  from  the  present  system,  yet  often  enjoy  some 
modest  social  privilege. 

While  Liebknecht  considered  that  the  wage-earning  class 
was  more  revolutionary  and  Socialistic  than  any  other,  he 
did  not  allow  this  for  one  moment  to  persuade  him  to  give  a 
subordinate  position  to  other  classes  in  the  movement,  as  he 
says : — 

"The  unhappy  situation  of  the  small  farmers  almost  all  over 
Germany  is  as  well  known  as  that  of  the  artisan  movement.  It  is 
true  that  both  small  farmers  and  small  shopkeepers  are  still  in  the 
camp  of  our  adversaries,  but  only  because  they  do  not  understand 
the  profound  causes  that  underlie  their  deplorable  condition ;  it  is  of 
prime  importance  for  our  party  to  enlighten  them  and  bring  them 
over  to  our  side.  This  is  the  vital  question  for  our  party,  because 
these  two  classes  form  the  majority  of  the  nation.  ,  .  .  We  ought  not 
to  ask,  'Are  you  a  wage  earner?'  but,  'Are  you  a  Socialist?' 

"If  it  is  limited  to  the  wage  earners,  Socialism  cannot  conquer. 

If  it  included  all  the  workers  and  the  moral  and  intellectual  e"lite 

of  the  nation,  its  victory  is  certain.  .  .  .     Not  to  contract,  but  to 

expand,  ought  to  be  our  motto.    The  circle  of  Socialism  should 

u 


290  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

widen  more  and  more,  until  we  have  converted  most  of  our  adversaries 
to  being  our  friends,  or  at  least  disarm  their  opposition. 

"And  the  indifferent  mass,  that  in  peaceful  days  has  no  weight 
in  the  political  balance,  but  becomes  the  decisive  force  in  times  of 
agitation,  ought  to  be  so  fully  enlightened  as  to  the  aims  and  the 
essential  ideas  of  our  party,  that  it  would  cease  to  fear  us  and  can 
be  no  longer  used  as  a  weapon  against  us."  (11)  (My  italics.) 

Karl  Kautsky,  though  he  takes  a  less  broad  view,  also 
says  that  the  Socialist  Party  is  "the  only  anti-capitalist 
party,"  (12)  and  contends  in  his  recent  pamphlet, "The  Road 
to  Power, "  that  its  recruiting  ground  in  Germany  includes 
three  fourths  of  the  nation,  and  probably  even  more,  which 
(even  in  Germany)  would  include  a  considerable  part  of  those 
ordinarily  listed  with  the  middle  class, 
i  Kautsky's  is  probably  the  prevailing  opinion  among  Ger- 
man Socialists.  Let  us  see  how  he  proposes  to  compose  a 
Socialist  majority.  Of  course  his  first  reliance  is  on  the  manual 
laborers,  skilled  and  unskilled.  Next  come  the  professional 
classes,  the  salaried  corporation  employees,  and  a  large  part 
of  the  office  workers,  which  together  constitute  what  Kautsky 
and  the  other  Continental  Socialists  call  the  new  middle  class. 
"Among  these,"  Kautsky  says,  "a  continually  increasing 
sympathy  for  the  proletariat  is  evident,  because  they  have  no 
special  class  interest,  and  owing  to  their  professional,  scientific 
point  of  view,  are  easiest  won  for  our  party  through  scientific 
considerations.  The  theoretical  bankruptcy  of  bourgeois 
economics,  and  the  theoretical  superiority  of  Socialism,  must 
become  clear  to  them.  Through  their  training,  also,  they  must 
discover  that  the  other  social  classes  continuously  strive  to 
debase  art  and  science.  Many  others  are  impressed  by  the 
fact  of  the  irresistible  advance  of  the  Social  Democracy.  So 
it  is  that  friendship  for  labor  becomes  popular  among  the 
cultured  classes,  until  there  is  scarcely  a  parlor  in  which  one 
does  not  stumble  over  one  or  more  'Socialists.'" 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  it  can  be  said  that  these 
classes  have  no  special  "class  interest,"  unless  it  is  meant 
that  their  interest  is  neither  that  of  the  capitalists  nor  pre- 
cisely that  of  the  industrial  wage-earning  class.  And  this, 
indeed,  is  Kautsky's  meaning,  for  he  seems  to  minimize  their 
value  to  the  Socialists,  because  as  a  class  they  cannot  be  relied 
upon. 

"Heretofore,  as  long  as  Socialism  was  branded  among  all  cultured 
classes  as  criminal  or  insane,  capitalist  elements  could  be  brought  into 


SOCIALISM  AND   THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE"      291 

the  Socialist  movement  only  by  a  complete  break  with  the  whole 
capitalist  world.  Whoever  came  into  the  Socialist  movement  at 
that  time  from  the  capitalist  element  had  need  of  great  energy, 
revolutionary  passion,  and  strong  proletarian  convictions.  It  was 
just  this  element  which  ordinarily  constituted  the  most  radical  and 
revolutionary  wing  of  the  Socialist  movement. 

"It  is  wholly  different  to-day,  since  Socialism  has  become  a  fad. 
It  no  longer  demands  any  special  energy,  or  any  break  with  capital- 
ist society  to  assume  the  name  of  Socialist.  It  is  no  wonder,  then, 
that  more  and  more  these  new  Socialists  remain  entangled  in  their 
previous  manner  of  thought  and  feeling. 

"The  fighting  tactics  of  the  intellectuals  are  at  any  rate  wholly 
different  from  those  of  the  proletariat.  To  wealth  and  power  of 
arms  the  latter  opposes  its  overwhelming  numbers  and  its  thorough 
organization.  The  intellectuals  are  an  ever  diminishing  minority, 
with  no  class  organization  whatever.  Their  only  weapon  is  persua- 
sion through  speaking  and  writing,  the  battle  with  'intellectual 
weapons'  and  'moral  superiority,'  and  these  'parlor  Socialists' 
would  settle  the  proletarian  class  struggle  also  with  these  weapons. 
They  declare  themselves  ready  to  grant  the  party  their  moral  sup- 
port, but  only  on  condition  that  it  renounces  the  idea  of  the  applica- 
tion of  force,  and  this  not  simply  where  force  is  hopeless,  —  there 
the  proletariat  has  already  renounced  it,  —  but  also  in  those  places 
where  it  is  still  full  of  possibilities.  Accordingly  they  seek  to  throw 
discredit  on  the  idea  of  revolution,  and  to  represent  it  as  a  useless 
means.  They  seek  to  separate  off  a  social  reform  wing  from  the 
revolutionary  proletariat,  and  they  thereby  divide  and  weaken  the 
proletariat."  (13) 

In  the  last  words  Kautsky  refers  to  the  fact  that  although 
a  large  number  of  "intellectuals"  (meaning  the  educated 
classes)  have  come  into  the  Socialist  Party  and  remain  there, 
they  constitute  a  separate  wing  of  the  movement.  We  must 
remember,  however,  that  this  same  wing  embraces,  besides 
these  "parlor  Socialists,"  a  great  many  trade  unionists,  and 
that  it  has  composed  a  very  considerable  portion  of  the  Ger- 
man Party,  and  a  majority  in  some  other  countries  of  the 
Continent ;  and  as  Kautsky  himself  admits  that  they  succeed 
in  "dividing  the  proletariat,"  they  cannot  be  very  far  re- 
moved politically  from  at  least  one  of  the  divisions  they  are 
said  to  have  created.  It  is  impossible  to  attribute  the  kind 
of  Socialism  to  which  Kautsky  objects  to  the  adhesion  of 
certain  educated  classes  to  the  movement  (for  reasons  in- 
dicated in  Part  II). 

While  many  of  the  present  spokesmen  of  Socialism  are, 
like  Kautsky,  somewhat  skeptical  as  to  the  necessity  of  an 


292  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

alliance  between  the  working  class  and  this  section  of  the 
middle  class,  others  accept  it  without  qualification.  If,  then, 
we  consider  at  once  the  middle  ground  taken  by  the  former 
group  of  Socialists,  and  the  very  positive  and  friendly  atti- 
tude of  the  latter,  it  must  be  concluded  that  the  Socialist 
movement  as  a  whole  is  convinced  that  its  success  depends 
upon  a  fusion  of  at  least  these  two  elements,  the  wage  earners 
and  "the  new  middle  class." 

A  few  quotations  from  the  well-known  revolutionary  Social- 
ist, Anton  Pannekoek,  will  show  the  contrast  between  the  nar- 
rower kind  of  Socialism,  which  still  survives  in  many  quarters, 
and  that  of  the  majority  of  the  movement.  He  discrimi- 
nates even  against  "the  new  middle  class,"  leaving  nobody 
but  the  manual  laborers  as  a  fruitful  soil  for  real  Socialism. 

"To  be  sure,  in  the  economic  sense  of  the  term,  then,  the  new 
middle  class  are  proletarians ;  but  they  form  a  very  special  group 
of  wage  workers,  a  group  that  is  so  sharply  divided  from  the  real 
proletarians  that  they  form  a  special  class  with  a  special  position 
in  the  class  struggle.  .  .  .  Immediate  need  does  not  compel  them 
as  it  does  the  real  proletarians  to  attack  the  capitalist  system. 
Their  position  may  arouse  discontent,  but  that  of  the  workers  is 
unendurable.  For  them  Socialism  has  many  advantages,  for  the 
workers  it  is  an  absolute  necessity."  (My  italics.)  (14) 

The  phrase  "absolute  necessity"  is  unintelligible.  It  is  com- 
paratively rarely  that  need  arises  to  the  height  of  actual  compulsion, 
and  when  it  does  instances  are  certainly  just  as  common  among 
clerks  as  they  are  among  bricklayers. 

Pannekoek  introduces  a  variety  of  arguments  to  sustain  his  posi- 
tion. For  instance,  that  "the  higher  strata  among  the  new  middle 
class  have  a  definitely  capitalistic  character.  The  lower  ones  are 
more  proletarian,  but  there  is  no  sharp  dividing  line."  This  is  true 
—  but  the  high  strata  in  every  class  are  capitalistic.  The  statement 
applies  equally  well  to  railway  conductors,  to  foremen,  and  to  many 
classes  of  manual  workers. 

"And  then,  too,"  Pannekoek  continues,  "they,  the  new  middle 
class,  have  more  to  fear  from  the  displeasure  of  their  masters,  and 
dismissal  for  them  is  a  much  more  serious  matter.  The  worker 
stands  always  on  the  verge  of  starvation,  and  so  unemployment  has 
few  terrors  for  him.  The  high-class  employee,  on  the  contrary,  has 
comparatively  an  easy  life,  and  a  new  position  is  difficult  to  find." 

Now  it  is  precisely  the  manual  laborer  who  is  most  often  black- 
listed by  the  large  corporations  and  trusts;  and  the  brain-working 
employee  is  better  able  to  adapt  himself  to  some  slightly  different 
employment  than  is  the  skilled  worker  in  any  of  the  highly  special- 
ized trades. 


SOCIALISM  AND   THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE '!      293 

"For  the  cause  of  Socialism  we  can  count  on  this  new  middle 
class,"  says  Pannekoek,  "even  less  than  on  the  labor  unions.  For 
one  thing,  they  have  been  set  over  the  workers,  as  superintendents, 
overseers,  bosses,  etc.  In  these  capacities  they  are  supposed  to 
speed  up  the  workers  to  get  the  utmost  out  of  them." 

Is  it  not  even  more  common,  we  may  ask,  that  one  manual  worker 
is  set  over  another  than  that  a  brain  worker  is  set  over  a  manual 
laborer  ? 

"They  [the  new  middle  class]  are  divided,"  writes  Pannekoek, 
"into  numberless  grades  and  ranks  arranged  one  above  the  other; 
they  dp  not  meet  as  comrades,  and  so  cannot  develop  the  spirit  of 
solidarity.  Each  individual  does  not  make  it  a  matter  of  personal 
pride  to  improve  the  condition  of  his  entire  class;  the  important 
thing  is  rather  that  he  personally  struggles  up  into  the  next  higher 
rank." 

If  we  remember  the  more  favorable  hours  and  conditions  under 
which  the  brain  workers  are  employed,  the  fact  that  they  are  not  so 
exhausted  physically  and  that  they  have  education,  we  may  see 
that  they  have  perhaps  even  greater  chances  "to  develop  their 
solidarity  "  and  to  understand  their  class  interests  than  have  the 
manual  workers.  It  is  true  that  they  are  more  divided  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  but  there  is  a  tendency  throughout  all  the  highly  organ- 
ized industries  to  divide  the  manual  laborers  in  the  same  way  and 
to  secure  more  work  from  them  by  a  similar  system  of  promotions. 

Pannekoek  accuses  the  brain  workers  of  having  something  to 
lose,  again  forgetting  that  there  are  innumerable  groups  of  more  or 
less  privileged  manual  laborers  who  are  in  the  same  position.  And 
finally,  he  contends  that  their  superior  schooling  and  education  is 
a  disadvantage  when  compared  to  the  lack  of  education  of  the  man- 
ual laborers:  — 

"They  have  great  notions  of  their  own  education  and  refinement, 
feel  themselves  above  the  masses ;  it  naturally  never  occurs  to  them 
that  the  ideals  of  these  masses  may  be  scientifically  correct  and  that 
the  'science'  of  their  professors  may  be  false.  As  theorizers  seeing 
the  world  always  with  their  minds,  knowing  little  or  nothing  of 
material  activities,  they  are  fairly  convinced  that  mind  controls 
the  world." 

On  the  contrary,  nearly  all  influential  Socialist  thinkers  agree  that 
present-day  science,  poorly  as  it  is  taught,  is  not  only  an  aid  to  Social- 
ism, but  the  very  best  basis  for  it. 

Pannekoek  is  right,  for  instance,  when  he  says  that  most  of  the 
brain  workers  in  the  Socialist  movement  come  from  the  circles  of  the 
small  capitalists  and  bring  an  anti-Socialist  prejudice  with  them, 
but  he  forgets  that,  on  the  other  side,  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  world's  working  people  are  the  children  of  farmers,  peasants, 
or  of  absolutely  unskilled  and  illiterate  workers,  whose  views  of  life 
were  even  more  prejudiced  and  whose  minds  were  perhaps  even  more 
filled  up  with  the  ideas  that  the  ruling  classes  have  placed  there. 


294  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

The  arguments  of  the  American  Socialist,  Thomas  Sladden, 
representing  as  they  do  the  views  of  many  thousands  of  rev- 
olutionary workingmen  in  this  country,  are  also  worthy  of  note. 
His  bitterness,  it  will  be  seen,  is  leveled  less  against  capitalism 
itself  than  against  what  he  considers  to  be  intrusion  of  .certain 
middle-class  elements  into  Socialist  ranks. 

"We  find  in  the  United  States  to-day,"  writes  Sladden,  "that  we 
have  created  several  new  religions,  one  of  the  most  interesting  of 
which  is  called  Socialism,  and  is  the  religion  of  a  decadent  middle 
class.  This  fake  Socialism  or  middle-class  religion  can  readily  be 
distinguished  from  the  real  Socialist  movement,  which  is  simply 
the  wage  working  class  in  revolt  on  both  the  industrial  and  polit- 
ical fields  against  presen^,  conditions.  .  .  .  Yesterday  I  was  a  bad 
capitalist  —  to-day  I  am  a  good  Socialist,  but  I  pay  my  wage  slaves 
the  same  wages  to-day  as  I  did  yesterday.  .  .  .  They  never  take 
the  answer  of  Bernard  Shaw,  who,  when  asked  by  a  capitalist  what 
he  could  do,  saying  that  he  could  not  help  being  a  capitalist,  was 
answered  in  this  manner :  You  can  go  and  crack  rock  if  you  want 
to;  no  one  forces  you  to  be  a  capitalist,  but  you  are  a  capitalist 
because  you  want  to  be.  No  one  forces  Hillquit  to  be  a  lawyer; 
he  could  get  a  job  in  a  lumber  yard.  There  is  no  more  excuse  for 
a  man  being  a  capitalist  or  a  lawyer  than  there  is  for  him  being  a 
Pinkerton  detective.  He  is  either  by  his  own  free  will  and  accord. 
The  system,  —  they  acclaim  in  one  breath,  —  the  system  makes  us 
do  what  we  do  not  wish  to  do.  The  system  does  nothing  of  the 
kind ;  the  system  gives  a  man  the  choice  between  honest  labor  and 
dishonest  labor  skinning,  and  a  labor  skinner  is  a  labor  skinner 
because  he  wishes  to  be,  just  the  same  as  some  men  are  pick- 
pockets because  they  wish  to  be." 

It  can  readily  be  realized  that  such  arguments  will  always 
have  great  weight  with  the  embittered  elements  of  the  work- 
ing class.  Nor  do  the  most  representative  Socialists  alto- 
gether disagree  with  Sladden.  They,  too,  feel  that  if  the 
war  is  not  levied  against  individuals,  neither  is  it  levied  against 
a  mere  abstract  system,  but  against  a  ruling  class.  However, 
they  make  exceptions  for  such  capitalists  as  the  late  Paul 
Singer,  who  definitely  abandon  their  class  and  throw  in  their 
lot  with  the  Socialist  movement,  while  Sladden  would  admit 
neither  Singer,  nor  those  other  millions  mentioned  by  Lieb- 
knecht  (see  above),  for  he  demands  that  the  Socialist  Party 
must  declare  that  "no  one  not  eligible  to  the  labor  unions  of 
the  United  States  is  eligible  to  the  Socialist  Party." 

The  high-water  mark  of  this  brand  of  revolutionism  was 
reached  in  the  State  of  Washington,  when  these  revolu- 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE"      295 

tionary  elements  in  the  Socialist  Party  withdrew  to  form  a 
new  workingmen's  party,  the  chief  novelty  of  which  was  a 
plank  dividing  the  organization  into  "an  active  list  and  an 
assistant  list,  only  wage  workers  being  admitted  to  the  active 
list."  The  wage  workers  were  defined  as  the  class  of  modern 
wage  laborers  who,  having  no  means  of  production  of  their 
own,  are  reduced  to  selling  their  labor  power  in  order  to  live. 
These  are  the  active  list,  and  they  alone  hold  office  and  vote. 
"The  assistant  list  cannot  hold  office  and  cannot  vote,"  and 
the  Party  will  "do  active  organizing  work  among  wage  earners 
alone."  This  reminds  one  very  much  of  the  notorious  divi- 
sion into  active  and  passive  citizens  at  the  early  stages  of 
the  French  Revolution,  which  gave  such  a  splendid  opportu- 
nity to  the  Jacobines  to  organize  a  revolt  of  the  passive  citi- 
zens and  was  one  of  the  chief  causes  leading  up  to  the  Reign 
of  Terror  and  the  Napoleonic  reaction  that  followed.  The 
Washington  plan,  however,  has  been  a  complete  failure.  It 
has  had  no  imitators  in  the  Socialist  movement,  nor  is  it 
likely  to  have. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  most  influential  representatives  of  the 
extreme  revolutionary  wing  of  the  movement,  like  nerve"  in 
France,  have  championed  the  non- wage-earning  elements  of 
the  movement  as  fearlessly  as  the  reformists. 

"In  the  ranks  of  our  party,"  writes  Herve"}  "are  to  be  found 
small  merchants,  small  employers,  wretched,  impoverished,  educated 
people,  small  peasant  proprietors,  none  of  whom  on  account  of 
occupation  can  enter  into  the  general  Federation  of  Labor,  which 
only  admits  those  receiving  wages  and  salaries.  These  are  rev- 
olutionary elements  which  cannot  be  neglected ; "  these  volunteers 
of  the  Revolution  who  have  often  a  beautiful  revolutionary  tem- 
perament would  be  lost  for  the  Revolution  if  our  political  organiza- 
tion was  not  at  hand  to  nourish  their .  activity.  Besides,  the 
General  Federation  of  Labor  is  a  somewhat  heavy  mass;  it  will 
become  more  and  more  heavy  as  it  comprises  the  majority  of  the 
working  clatfs  which  is  by  nature  rather  pacific  at  the  bottom." 

While  there  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  the  accusation  that 
the  Socialist  movement  neglects  the  brain  workers  of  the 
salaried  and  professional  classes,  there  is  somewhat  more  solid 
ground,  in  spite  of  the  above  quoted  declarations  of  Lieb- 
knecht  and  nerve",  for  the  accusation  that  it  antagonizes 
those  sections  of  the  middle  classes  which  are,  even  to  a 
slight  degree,  small  capitalists,  as,  for  example,  especially  the 
farmers. 


296  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"The  unimaginative  person,"  says  Mr.  H.  G,  Wells,  "who 
owns  some  little  bit  of  property,  an  acre  or  so  of  freehold  land, 
or  a  hundred  pounds  in  the  savings  bank,  will  no  doubt  be 
the  most  tenacious  passive  resister  to  Socialist  ideas;  and 
such  I  fear  we  must  reckon,  together  with  the  insensitive  rich, 
as  our  irreconcilable  enemies,  as  irremovable  pillars  of  the 
present  order."  (15) 

This  view  is  widespread  among  Socialists,  and  is  even  sus- 
tained by  Kautsky.  "Small  merchants  and  innkeepers," 
he  writes,  "have  despaired  of  ever  rising  by  their  own  exer- 
tions; they  expect  everything  from  above  and  look  only  to 
the  upper  classes  and  to  the  government  for  assistance," 
though  they  "find  their  customers  only  in  laboring  circles,  so 
that  their  existence  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  the  pros- 
perity or  adversity  of  the  laboring  classes."  The  contra- 
diction Kautsky  finds  goes  even  further.  He  says,  "Servility 
depends  upon  reaction  —  and  furnishes  not  only  the  willing 
supporters,  but  the  fanatical  advocates  of  the  monarchy,  the 
church,  and  the  nobility."  With  all  this  they  (the  shop- 
keepers, etc.)  remain  democratic,  since  it  is  only  through 
democracy  that  they  can  obtain  political  influence.  Kautsky 
calls  them  the  "reactionary  democracy."  (16)  But  if  they 
are  democratic  and  in  part  economically  dependent  on  the 
laboring  classes,  then  why  should  not  this  part  cast  its  lot 
economically  and  politically  with  the  working  class  ? 

Kautsky  extends  his  criticism  of  the  small  capitalists  very 
far  and  even  seems  in  doubt  concerning  the  owners  of  small 
investments  such  as  savings  bank  deposits.  "Well-meaning 
optimists,"  he  says,  "have  seen  in  this  a  means  of  decentraliz- 
ing capital,  so  that  after  a  while,  in  the  most  peaceable  man- 
ner, without  any  one  noticing  it,  capital  would  be  transformed 
into  social  property.  In  fact,  this  movement  really  means 
the  transformation  of  all  the  money  of  the  middle  and  lower 
classes,  which  is  not  used  by  them  for  immediate  consump- 
tion, into  money  capital,  and  as  such  placing  it  at  the  disposal 
of  the  great  financiers  for  the  buying  out  of  industrial  man- 
agers, and  thereby  assisting  in  the  concentration  on  industry 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  financiers." 

The  classes  which  have  invested  their  capital  directly  or 
indirectly  in  stocks  or  bonds  through  savings  banks  and 
through  insurance  companies  number  many  millions,  and 
include  the  large  majority  of  all  sections  of  the  middle  class, 
even  of  its  most  progressive  part,  salaried  employees,  and  the 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE"      297 

professional  element.  It  is  undoubtedly  true,  as  Kautsky 
says,  that  small  investors  are  not  obtaining  any  direct  con- 
trol over  capital,  and  that  their  funds  are  used  in  the  way  he 
points  out,  constituting  one  of  the  striking  and  momentous 
tendencies  of  the  time.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are 
destined  to  lose  such  investments  altogether,  as  the  legislative 
reforms  to  protect  banks  may  be  extended  to  the  railroads 
and  other  forms  of  investments.  The  small  investors  will 
scarcely  be  turned  to  favor  capitalism  by  their  investments, 
which  bring  in  small  profit  and  allow  them  nothing  to  say  in 
the  management  of  industry,  but  neither  will  the  losses  they 
sometimes  suffer  from  this  source  be  sufficient  in  themselves 
to  convert  them  into  allies  of  the  working  class. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  farmers  and  small  shopkeepers,  every- 
thing here  depends  upon  the  economic  and  political  program 
which  the  working  class  develops  and  offers  in  competition 
with  the  "State  Socialism "•  of  the  capitalists.  If  it  were 
true  that  the  ownership  of  the  smallest  amount  of  property 
brings  it  about  that  Socialism  is  no  longer  desired,  not  a  small 
minority  of  the  population  will  be  found  aligned  with  the 
capitalists,  but  all  the  four  million  owners  of  farms,  and  the 
other  millions  with  a  thousand  dollars  or  so  invested  in  a  build- 
ing and  loan  association,  an  insurance  policy  or  a  savings  bank 
deposit,  a  total  numbering  almost  half  of  the  occupied  popu- 
lation. A  bare  majority,  it  is  true,  might  still  be  without 
any  stake  in  the  community  even  of  this  modest  character. 
But  neither  in  the  United  States  nor  elsewhere  is  there  any 
hope  that  a  majority  of  the  absolutely  propertyless,  even  if  it 
becomes  a  large  one,  will  become  sufficiently  large  within  a 
generation,  or  perhaps  even  within  a  century,  to  enable  it 
to  overthrow  the  capitalists,  unless  it  draws  over  to  its  side 
certain  elements  at  least,  of  the  middle  classes,  who,  though 
weaker  in  some  respects  are  better  educated,  better  placed,  and 
politically  stronger  than  itself.  The  revolutionary  spokes- 
men of  the  international  Socialist  movement  now  recognize 
this  as  clearly  as  do  the  most  conservative  observers. 

The  outcome  of  the  great  social  struggle  depends  on  the 
relative  success  of  employers  and  employed  in  gaining  the 
support  of  those  classes  which,  either  on  account  of  their 
ownership  of  some  slight  property,  or  because  they  receive 
salaries  or  fees  sufficiently  large,  must  be  placed  in  the  middle 
class,  but  who  cannot  be  classified  primarily  as  small  capitalists 
That  this  is  the  crux  of  the  situation  is  recognized  on  all  sides. 


298  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  for  instance,  demands  that  every- 
thing be  done  to  strengthen  and  increase  numerically  this 
middle  class,  composed  of  millions  of  persons  whom  he  claims 
"would  certainly  lose  by  anything  like  a  general  overturn, 
and  .  .  .  are  everywhere  the  strongest  and  the  best  organ- 
ized millions,"  and  his  "State  Socialism"  is  directed  chiefly  to 
that  end.  He  believes  that  these  millions,  once  become  com- 
pletely converted  into  small  capitalists,  would  certainly  pre- 
vent by  an  overwhelming  resistance  any  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  rest  of  the  people  to  gain  what  he  curiously  calls,  "a 
selfish  advantage." 

Mr.  Churchill  says  that  "  the  masses  of  the  people  should  not 
use  the  fact  that  they  are  in  a  majority  as  a  means  to  advance 
their  relative  position  in  society."  There  could  not  be  a  sharper 
contrast  between  "State  Socialism"  and  Socialism.  To 
Socialists  the  whole  duty  of  man  as  a  social  being  is  to  per- 
suade the  masses  to  "use  the  fact  that  they  are  in  a  majority 
as  a  means  to  advance  their  relative  position  in  society." 
Mr.  Churchill  seems  to  feel  that  as  long  as  everybody  shares 
more  or  less  in  the  general  increase  of  prosperity  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  and,  as  he  says,  as  long  as  there  is  "an 
ever  increasing  volume  of  production  and  an  increasing  wide 
diffusion  of  profit,"  there  is  no  ground  for  complaint  — 
whether  the  relative  division  of  wealth  and  opportunity 
between  the  many  and  the  few  becomes  more  equal  or  not. 
But  he  realizes  that  his  moral  suasion  is  not  likely  to  be  heeded 
and  is  wise  in  putting  his  trust  in  the  middle-class  millions. 
For  these  are  the  bone  of  contention  between  capitalism  and 
Socialism. 

While  the  new  middle  class  (that  is,  the  lower  salaried 
classes,  corporation  employees,  professional  men,  etc.)  is 
increasing  numerically  more  rapidly  than  any  other,  large 
numbers  within  it  are  being  deprived  of  any  hope  of  rising 
into  the  wealthy  or  privileged  class.  As  a  consequence  they 
are  everywhere  crowding  into  the  Socialist  ranks  —  by  the 
hundred  thousand  in  countries  where  the  movement  is  oldest. 
Even  in  the  organized  Socialist  parties  these  middle-class 
elements  everywhere  form  a  considerable  proportion  of  the 
whole.  Practically  a  third  of  the  American  Party  according 
to  a  recent  reckoning  were  engaged  either  in  farming  (15  per 
cent)  or  in  commercial  (9  per  cent)  or  professional  pursuits 
(5  per  cent). 

It  is  plain  that  certain  sections  of  the  so-called  middle  class 


SOCIALISM  AND   THE   "CLASS  STRUGGLE"       299 

are  not  only  welcomed  by  Socialist  parties,  but  constitute 
their  most  dependable  and  indispensable  elements.  Indeed, 
the  majority  of  the  Socialists  agree  with  Kautsky  that  the 
danger  lies  in  the  opposite  direction,  that  an  unreliable  small 
capitalist  element  has  been  admitted  that  will  make  trouble 
until  it  leaves  the  movement,  in  other  words,  that  Socialist 
friendship  for  these  classes  has  gone  to  the  point  of  risking 
the  existence  of  their  organization.  Surely  their  presence  is 
a  guarantee  that  Socialists  have  not  been  ruled  by  the  work- 
ing class  or  proletarian  "fetish,"  against  which  Marx  warned 
them  more  than  half  a  century  ago. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  AND  THE 
LAND  QUESTION 

I  HAVE  pointed  out  the  relation  of  the  Socialist  movement 
to  all  classes  but  one,  —  the  agriculturists, — a  class  numeric- 
ally next  in  importance  to  the  industrial  wage  earners. 

On  the  one  hand  most  agriculturists  are  small  capitalists, 
who,  even  when  they  do  not  own  their  farms,  are  often  forced 
to-day  to  invest  a  considerable  sum  in  farm  animals  and 
machinery,  in  rent  and  interest  and  in  wages  at  the  harvest 
season ;  on  the  other  hand,  a  large  part  of  the  farmers  work 
harder  and  receive  less  for  their  work  than  skilled  laborers, 
while  the  amount  they  own,  especially  when  tenants,  scarcely 
exceeds  what  it  has  cost  many  skilled  workers  to  learn  their 
trade.  Are  the  great  majority  of  farmers,  then,  rather  small 
capitalists  or  laborers? 

For  many  years  Socialists  paid  comparatively  little  atten- 
tion to  the  problem.  How  was  it  then  imagined  that  a  polit- 
ical program  could  obtain  the  support  of  the  majority  of  the 
voters  without  presenting  to  the  agricultural  population  as 
satisfactory  a  solution  of  their  difficulties  as  that  it  offered 
to  the  people  of  the  towns  ?  On  the  other  hand,  how  was  it 
possible  to  adapt  a  program  frankly  "formulated  by  or  for 
the  workingmen  of  large-scale  industry"  to  the  conditions  of 
agriculture  ? 

The  estimate  of  the  rural  population  that  has  hitherto 
prevailed  among  the  Socialists  of  most  countries  may  be  seen 
from  the  following  language  of  Kautsky's: — 

"We  have  already  seen  how  the  peasant's  production  [that  of 
the  small  farmer]  isolates  men.  The  capitalists'  means  of  pro- 
duction and  the  modern  State,  to  be  sure,  have  a  powerful  tendency 
to  put  an  end  to  the  isolation  of  the  peasant  through  taxation, 
military  service,  railways,  and  newspapers.  But  the  increase  of  the 
points  of  contact  between  town  and  country  as  a  rule  only  have 
the  effect  that  the  peasant  farmer  feels  his  desolation  and  isolation 
less  keenly.  They  raise  him  up  as  a  peasant  farmer,  but  awake  in 
him  a  longing  for  the  town ;  they  drive  all  the  most  energetic  and 

300 


THE   AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  301 

independently  thinking  elements  from  the  country  into  the  towns, 
and  rob  the  former  of  its  forces.  So  that  the  progress  of  modern 
economic  life  has  the  effect  of  increasing  the  desolation  and  lone- 
someness  of  the  country  rather  than  ending  it. 

"The  truth  is  that  in  every  country  the  agricultural  population 
is  economically  and  politically  the  most  backward.  That  does  not 
imply  any  reflection  on  it ;  it  is  its  misfortune,  but  it  is  a  fact  with 
which  one  must  deal."  (1) 

Not  only  Kautsky  and  Vandervelde,  but  whole  Socialist 
parties  like  those  of  Austria  and  Germany,  are  given  to  the 
exploitation  of  the  supposed  opposition  between  town  and 
country,  the  producer  and  the  consumer  of  agricultural  prod- 
ucts. At  the  German  Socialist  Congress  of  1911,  Bebel  de- 
clared that  to-day  those  who  were  most  in  need  of  protection 
were  the  consumers  of  agricultural  products,  the  working- 
men,  lower  middle  classes  and  employees.  He  felt  the  day 
was  approaching  when  the  increased  cost  of  living  would 
form  the  chief  question  before  the  German  people,  the  day 
when  the  German  people  would  raise  a  storm  and  tear  down 
the  tariffs  on  the  necessaries  of  life  as  well  as  other  meas- 
ures that  unduly  favor  the  agriculturists  —  while  the  pro- 
posal of  socialization  would  come  up  first  in  the  field  of 
agriculture. 

While,  in  view  of  the  actual  level  of  prices  in  Germany, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  even  the  smallest  of  the  agriculturists 
are  getting  some  share  of  the  spoils  of  the  tariffs  and  other 
measures  Bebel  mentions,  there  can  also  be  little  question 
that  in  such  a  storm  of  revolt  as  he  predicts  the  pendulum 
would  swing  too  far  the  other  way,  and  they  would  suffer 
unjustly.  It  is  true  that  the  agriculturist  produces  bread, 
while  the  city  worker  consumes  it,  but  so  also  do  shoe  workers 
produce  shoes  that  are  consumed  by  garment  workers,  and 
certainly  no  Socialist  predicts  any  lasting  struggle  between 
producers  of  shoes  and  producers  of  clothing.  It  is  true  also 
that  if  the  wage  earner's  condition  is  to  be  improved,  some 
limit  must  be  set  to  prices  as  wages  are  raised.  But  the  flour 
manufacturer  and  the  baker  must  be  restrained  as  well  as  the 
grain  producer.  Nor  do  Socialists  expect  to  accomplish  much 
by  the  mere  regulation  of  prices.  And  when  it  comes  to  their 
remedy,  socialization,  there  is  less  reason,  as  I  shall  show,  for 
beginning  with  land  rent  than  with  industrial  capital,  and 
the  Socialist  parties  of  France  and  America  recognize  this 
fact. 


302  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

But  it  is  the  practical  result  of  this  supposed  opposition  of 
town  and  country  rather  than  its  inconsistency  with  Socialist 
principles  that  must  hold  our  attention.  Certainly  no  agri- 
cultural program  and  no  appeal  to  the  agricultural  popula- 
tion, perhaps  not  even  one  addressed  to  agricultural  laborers, 
can  hope  for  success  while  this  view  of  the  opposition  of  town 
and  country  is  maintained ;  for  all  agriculturists  want  what 
they  consider  to  be  reasonable  prices  for  their  products,  and 
their  whole  life  depends  directly  or  indirectly  on  these  prices. 
When  the  workmen  agitate,  as  they  so  often  do  in  Europe,  for 
cheap  bread  and  meat,  without  qualifying  their  agitation  by 
any  regard  for  the  agriculturists,  all  hope  of  obtaining  the 
support  of  any  of  the  agricultural  classes,  even  laborers, 
is  for  the  time  being  abandoned. 

The  predominance  of  town  over  country  is  so  important 
to  Kautsky  that  he  even  opposes  such  a  vital  piece  of  demo- 
cratic reform  as  direct  legislation  where  the  town-country 
population  is  the  more  numerous  than  that  of  the  towns. 
"We  have  seen"  he  says,  "that  the  modern  representative 
system  is  not  very  favorable  to  the  peasantry  or  to  the  small 
capitalists,  especially  of  the  country  towns.  The  classes 
which  the  representative  system  most  favors  are  the  large 
owners  of  capital  or  land,  the  highly  educated,  and  under  a 
democratic  electoral  system,  the  militant  and  class-conscious 
part  of  the  industrial  working  class.  So  in  general  one  can 
say  parliamentarism  favors  the  population  of  the  large  towns 
as  against  that  of  the  country." 

Far  from  being  disturbed  at  this  unjust  and  unequal  sys- 
tem, Kautsky  prefers  that  it  should  not  be  reformed,  unless 
the  town  population  are  in  a  majority.  "Direct  legislation 
by  the  people  works  against  these  tendencies  of  parliamenta- 
rism. If  the  latter  strives  to  place  the  political  balance  of 
power  in  the  population  of  the  large  towns,  the  former  puts 
it  in  the  masses  of  the  population,  but  these  still  live  every- 
where and  for  the  most  part  in  a  large  majority,  with  the 
exception  of  England,  in  the  country  and  in  the  small  country 
towns.  Direct  legislation  takes  away  from  the  population 
of  the  large  towns  their  special  political  influence,  and  sub- 
jects them  to  the  country  population."  (2) 

He  concludes  that  wherever  and  as  long  as  the  agricultural 
population  remains  in  a  majority,  the  Socialists  have  no 
special  reason  to  work  for  direct  legislation. 

Of  course  Kautsky  and  his  school  do  not  expect  this  sepa- 


THE   AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  303 

ration  or  antagonism  of  agriculture  and  industry  to  last  very 
far  into  the  future.  But  as  long  as  capitalism  lasts  they 
believe  agriculturists  will  play  an  entirely  subordinate  role 
in  politics.  "While  the  capitalist  mode  of  production  in- 
creases visibly  the  difficulties  of  the  formation  of  a  revolu- 
tionary class  (in  the  country),  it  favors  it  in  the  towns,"  he 
says.  "It  there  concentrates  the  laboring  masses,  creates 
conditions  favorable  to  every  organization  for  their  mental 
evolution  and  for  their  class  struggle.  ...  It  debilitates 
the  country,  disperses  the  agricultural  workers  over  vast 
areas,  isolates  them,  robs  them  of  all  means  of  mental 
development  and  resistance  to  exploitation."  (3) 

Similarly  Vandervelde  quotes  from  Voltaire's  essay  on 
customs  a  sentence  describing  the  European  peasantry  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  as  "savages  living  in  cabins 
with  their  females  and  a  few  animals,"  and  asks,  "  who 
would  dare  to  pretend  that  these  words  have  lost  all  their 
reality  ?  "  He  admits  that  "rural  barbarism  has  decreased," 
but  still  considers  the  peasantry,  not  as  a  class  which  must 
take  an  active  'part  in  bringing  about  Socialism,  but  as  one 
to  which  "conquering  Socialism  will  bring  political  liberty 
and  social  equality."  (4) 

Kautsky  says  that  either  the  small  farmer  is  not  really 
independent,  and  pieces  out  his  income  by  hiring  himself 
out  occasionally  to  some  larger  landowner  or  other  employer, 
or  else,  if  entirely  occupied  with  his  own  work,  that  he  man- 
ages to  compete  with  large-scale  cultivation  only  "by  over- 
work and  underconsumption,  by  barbarism,  as  Marx  says." 

"To-day  the  situation  of  the  city  proletariat,"  Kautsky 
adds,  "is  already  so  superior  to  the  barbaric  situation  of  the 
older  peasants,  that  the  younger  peasants'  generation  is 
leaving  the  fields  along  with  the  class  of  rural  wage  earners." 
There  can  be  no  question  that  small  farms,  those  without 
permanent  hired  labor,  survive  competition  with  the  larger 
and  better  equipped,  only  by  overwork  and  underconsump- 
tion. But  the  unfavorable  comparison  with  city  wage 
earners  and  the  repetition  to-day  of  Marx's  term  "barbarism" 
is  no  longer  justified.  Where  these  conditions  still  exist, 
they  are  due  largely  to  special  legal  obstacles  placed  in  the 
way  of  European  peasants,  and  to  legal  privileges  given  to 
the  great  landlords,  —  in  other  words,  to  remnants  of  feu- 
dalism. Kautsky's  error  in  making  this  as  a  statement  of 
general  application  would  seem  to  be  based  on  a  confusion 


304  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

of  the  survivals  of  feudalism,  as  seen  in  some  parts  of  Europe, 
with  the  necessary  conditions  of  agricultural  production,  as 
seen  in  this  country. 

Kautsky  himself  has  lately  given  full  recognition  to  another 
factor  in  the  agricultural  situation  —  the  horrors  of  wage 
slavery,  which  acts  in  the  very  opposite  manner  to  these  feudal 
conditions  and  prevents  both  small  agriculturists  and  agricul- 
tural laborers  from  immigrating  to  the  towns  in  greater  num- 
bers than  they  do,  and  persuades  them  in  spite  of  its  drudgery 
to  prefer  the  life  of  the  owner  of  a  small  farm. 

"Since  labor  in  large-scale  industry  takes  to-day  the  repul- 
sive form  of  wage  labor,"  he  says,  "many  owners  of  small 
properties  keep  holding  on  to  them  with  the  greatest  sacri- 
fices, for  the  sole  purpose  of  avoiding  falling  into  the  serfdom 
and  insecurity  of  wage  labor.  Only  Socialism  can  put  an 
end  to  small  production,  not  of  course  by  the  forceful  ejection 
of  small  owners,  but  by  giving  them  an  opportunity  to  work 
for  the  perfected  large  establishments  with  a  shortened 
working  day  and  a  larger  income."  (5)  Surely  there  is  little 
ground  to  lay  special  stress  on  the  "barbarism"  of  small 
farms,  if  such  a  large  proportion  of  farmers  and  agricultural 
laborers  prefer  it  on  good  grounds  to  "the  serfdom  and 
insecurity"  of  labor  on  large  farms  or  in  manufacturing  estab- 
lishments. 

It  is  doubtless  chiefly  because  European  conditions  are  such 
as  to  make  the  conversion  of  the  majority  of  agriculturists 
difficult,  that  so  many  European  Socialists  claim  that  an 
existing  or  prospective  preponderance  of  manufacturers 
makes  it  unnecessary.  But,  while  in  many  countries  of 
Europe  the  remnants  of  feudalism,  or  rather  of  eighteenth- 
century  absolutism  and  landlord  rule,  to  which  this  back- 
ward political  condition  is  largely  due,  have  not  only  sur- 
vived, but  have  been  modernized,  through  the  protection 
extended  to  large  estates,  so  as  to  become  a  part  and  parcel 
of  modern  capitalism,  this  condition  does  not  promise  to 
be  at  all  lasting.  There  are  already  signs  of  change  in  the 
agricultural  sections  of  Bohemia,  Hungary,  and  Italy,  while 
in  France,  where  the  political  influence  of  the  large  landlord 
class  is  rapidly  on  the  decline,  the  Socialists  have  appealed 
successfully,  under  certain  conditions,  not  only  to  agricul- 
tural laborers,  but  also  to  small  independent  farmers. 

As  Socialists  come  to  take  a  world  view,  giving  due  promi- 
nence to  countries  like  France  and  the  United  States,  where 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  305 

agriculture  has  had  its  freest  development,  they  grow  away 
from  the  older  standpoint  and  give  more  attention  to  the 
rural  population.  The  rapid  technical  evolution  of  agricul- 
ture and  the  equally  rapid  changes  in  the  ownership  of  land 
in  a  country  like  the  United  States  have  encouraged  our 
Socialists  to  reexamine  the  whole  question.  I  cannot  enter 
into  a  discussion,  even  the  most  cursory,  of  agricultural 
evolution  in  this  country,  but  a  few  indications  from  the  cen- 
sus of  1910  will  show  the  general  tendencies. 

Farm  owners  and  tenants  probably  now  have  $45,000,- 
000,000  in  property  (1910),  fully  a  third  of  the  national 
wealth,  and  with  6,340,000  farms  they  are  just  about 
a  third  of  our  population.  This  calculation  does  not  allow 
for  interest  (where  farmers  have  borrowed)  or  rent  (where 
they  are  tenants) ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  does  not  allow  for 
the  fact  that  many  farmers  have  bank  accounts  and  outside 
investments.  But  it  indicates  the  prosperity  of  a  large  part 
of  the  farming  class. 

The  value  of  the  land  of  the  average  farm  has  doubled 
since  1900  ($2271  in  1900  — $4477  in  1910)  in  spite  of  a 
decrease  in  the  size  of  farms,  while  the  amount  spent  for 
labor  increased  80  per  cent,  which  the  statistics  show  was  due 
in  part  to  higher  wages,  but  in  larger  part  to  the  greater  amount 
of  labor  and  the  greater  number  of  laborers  used.  Other  expendi- 
tures increased  almost  proportionately,  and  the  capital  em- 
ployed in  land,  buildings,  machinery,  fertilizers,  and  labor 
has  almost  doubled  in  this  short  period.  As  prices  advanced 
less  than  25  per  cent  during  the  decade,  all  these  increases 
were  largely  real.  The  gross  income  of  the  average  farm 
owner,  measured  in  what  it  could  buy,  evidently  rose  by  more 
than  50  per  cent,  and  his  real  net  income  nearly  as  fast.  The 
average  farm  owner  then  was  receiving  a  fair  share  of  the 
increase  of  the  national  wealth. 

But  farmers  cannot  profitably  be  considered  as  a  single 
class.  Tenants  are  rarely  at  the  same  time  landlords. 
Farmers  paying  interest  are  usually  not  the  same  as  those 
holding  mortgages.  A  few  of  the  debtors  may  be  very  suc- 
cessful men  who  borrow  only  to  buy  more  land  and  hire  more 
labor.  But  very  few  tenants  are  in  this  class.  We  may  safely 
assume  that  those  who  own  without  a  mortgage  or  employ 
labor  steadily  with  one  are  getting  more  than  an  average 
share  of  the  national  wealth,  while  tenants  or  those  who 
have  mortgaged  their  land  heavily  and  do  not  regularly  hire 


306  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

labor  (except  at  harvest)  are,  in  the  average  case,  getting 
less.  Investments  of  borrowed  money  in  the  best  machinery 
or  farm  animals  by  a  single  family  working  alone  and  on  a 
very  small  scale,  may  give  a  good  return  above  interest,  but 
this  return  is  strictly  limited  unless  with  most  exceptional 
or  most  fortunate  persons. 

Now  the  statistics  of  the  increase  of  agricultural  wages 
show  that  they  rose  in  no  such  proportion  as  the  increase 
of  agricultural  capital  —  and  the  possibility  of  a  farm  hand 
saving  his  wages  and  becoming  the  owner  of  one  of  these 
more  and  more  costly  farms  is  more  remote  than  ever.  But 
there  is  a  third  solution  —  the  agricultural  laborer  may 
neither  remain  a  laborer  nor  become  an  owner.  If  he  can 
accumulate  enough  capital  for  machinery,  horses,  farm  ani- 
mals, and  seed,  he  can  pay  for  the  use  of  the  land  from  his 
annual  product,  he  can  become  a  tenant.  On  the  other  side, 
if  the  value  of  the  usual  160-acre  homestead  rises  to  $20,000 
or  $30,000,  the  owner  is  easily  able  to  make  a  few  thousand 
dollars  in  addition  by  selling  his  farm  animals  and  machinery 
and  to  retire  to  the  country  town  and  live  on  his  rent. 

It  is  evident  that  the  position  of  most  of  these  farm  ten- 
ants is  very  close  to  that  of  laborers.  Though  working  on 
their  own  account,  it  is  so  difficult  for  them  to  make  a  living 
that  they  are  forced  to  the  longest  hours  and  to  the  exploita- 
tion of  their  wives  and  children  under  all  possible  and  impos- 
sible circumstances.  Already  farm  tenants  are  almost  as 
numerous  in  this  country  as  farm  owners.  The  census 
figures  indicated  that  the  proportion  of  tenants  had  risen 
from  23  per  cent  in  1880  to  37  per  cent  in  1910.  Not  only 
this,  but  a  closer  inspection  of  the  figures  by  States  will  show 
that,  whereas  in  new  States  like  Minnesota,  where  tenancy 
has  not  had  time  to  develop,  it  embraced  in  1900  less  than 
20  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of  farms,  in  many  older  States 
the  percentage  had  already  risen  high  above  40.  This 
increase  of  tenants  proves  an  approach  of  the  United  States 
to  the  fundamental  economic  condition  of  older  countries 
—  the  divorce  of  land  cultivation  from  land  ownership,  and 
the  census  of  1910  shows  that  three  eighths  of  the  farms  of  the 
United  States  are  already  in  that  condition. 

Land  and  hired  labor  are  the  chief  sources  of  agricultural 
wealth,  and  capital  is  most  productive  only  when  it  is  invested 
in  these  as  well  as  other  means  of  production.  That  is,  if  the 
small  farmer  is  really  a  small  capitalist,  if  he  is  to  receive  a 


THE   AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  307 

return  from  his  capital  as  well  as  his  own  individual  and  that 
of  his  family  labor,  he  must,  as  a  rule,  either  have  enough 
capital  to  provide  work  for  others  and  his  family,  or  he  must 
get  a  share  of  the  unearned  increment  through  the  ownership 
of  his  farm,  or  long  leases  without  revaluation.  Farm  ten- 
ants who  do  not  habitually  employ  labor,  or  those  whose 
mortgages  are  so  heavy  as  practically  to  place  them  in  the 
position  of  such  tenants,  are,  for  these  reasons,  undoubtedly 
accessible  to  Socialist  ideas  —  as  long  as  they  remain  farm 
tenants. 

But  now  after  discarding  all  the  European  prejudices  above 
referred  to,  let  us  look  at  the  other  side.  Tenants  every- 
where belong  to  those  classes  which,  as  Kautsky  truly  says, 
in  the  passage  quoted  in  a  previous  chapter,  are  also  a  recruit- 
ing ground  for  the  capitalists.  They  are  more  likely  to  be 
the  owners  of  the  capital,  now  a  considerable  sum,  needed 
to  operate  a  small  farm  (cattle,  machinery,  etc.)  than  are 
farm  laborers,  and  it  is  for  their  benefit  chiefly  that  the 
various  governmental  plans  for  creating  new  small  farms 
through  irrigation,  reclamation,  and  the  division  of  large 
estates  are  contrived.  And  it  is  even  possible  that  practi- 
cally all  the  present  tenants  may  some  day  be  provided  for. 

By  maintaining  or  creating  small  farms  then,  or  providing 
for  a  system  of  long  leases  and  small-sized  allotments  of 
governmentally  owned  land,  guaranteed  against  any  raise 
in  rents  during  the  term  of  the  lease,  capitalist  governments 
may  gradually  succeed  in  firmly  attaching  the  larger  part 
of  the  struggling  small  farmers  and  farm  tenants  to  capital- 
ism. While  still  in  the  individualistic  form  capitalism  will 
establish,  wherever  it  can,  privately  owned  small  farms; 
when  it  will  have  adopted  the  collectivist  policy,  it  will  inaug- 
urate a  system  of  national  ownership  and  long  leases. 

Even  the  small  farmer  who  hires  no  labor,  and  does  not  even 
own  his  farm,  will  probably  be  held,  as  a  class,  by  capitalism, 
but  only  by  the  collectivist  capitalism  of  the  future,  which 
will  probably  protect  him  from  landlordism  by  keeping  the 
title  to  the  land,  but  dividing  the  unearned  increment  with 
him  by  a  system  of  long  leases,  and  using  its  share  of  this 
increment  for  the  promotion  of  agriculture  and  for  other 
purposes  he  approves. 

Socialists,  then,  do  not  expect  to  include  in  their  ranks  in 
considerable  numbers,  either  agricultural  employers  or  such 
tenants,  laborers,  or  farm  owners  as  are  becoming,  or  believe 


308  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

they  will  become,  employers  (either  under  present  govern- 
ments or  under  collectivist  capitalism). 

Only  when  the  day  finally  comes  when  Socialism  begins 
to  exert  a  pressure  on  the  government  adversely  to  the  in- 
terest of  the  capitalist  class  will  higher  wages  and  new  gov- 
ernmental expenditures  on  wage  earners  begin  to  reverse 
conditions  automatically,  making  labor  dearer,  small  farms 
which  employ  labor  less  profitable,  and  a  lease  of  govern- 
ment land  less  desirable,  for  example,  than  the  position  of  a 
skilled  employee  on  a  model  government  farm.  All  govern- 
ments will  then  be  forced  by  the  farming  population  itself 
to  lend  more  and  more  support  to  the  Socialist  policy  of 
great  national  municipal  or  county  farms,  rather  than  to 
the  artificial  promotion  or  small-scale  agriculture. 

For  the  present  and  the  near  future  the  only  lasting  support 
Socialists  can  find  in  the  country  is  from  the  surplus  of  agri- 
cultural laborers  and  perhaps  a  certain  part  of  the  tenants,  i.e. 
those  who  cannot  be  provided  for  even  if  all  large  estates 
are  everywhere  divided  into  small  farms,  all  practicable  works 
of  reclamation  and  irrigation  completed,  and  scientific 
methods  introduced  —  and  who  will  find  no  satisfactory 
opportunity  in  neighboring  countries.  It  must  be  acknowl- 
edged that  such  tenants  at  present  form  no  very  large  part 
of  the  agricultural  population  in  the  United  States.  On  the 
other  hand,  agriculturists  are  even  less  backward  here  than 
in  Europe,  and  there  is  less  opposition  between  town  and 
country,  and  both  these  facts  favor  rural  Socialism. 

If,  however,  the  majority  of  farmers  must  remain  inacces- 
sible to  Socialism  until  the  great  change  is  at  hand,  this  is 
not  because  they  are  getting  an  undue  share  of  the  national 
wealth  or  because  they  are  private  property  fanatics,  or 
because  agriculturists  are  economically  and  politically  back- 
ward, or  because  they  are  hostile  to  labor,  though  all  this  is 
true  of  many,  but  because  of  all  classes,  they  are  the  most 
easily  capable  of  being  converted  into  (or  perpetuated  as) 
small  capitalists  by  the  reforms  of  the  capitalist  states- 
man in  search  of  reliable  and  numerically  important  political 
support. 

I  have  shown  the  attitude  of  the  Socialists  towards  each 
of^the  agricultural  classes  —  their  belief  that  they  will  be  able 
to  attach'' to  themselves  the  agricultural  laborers  and  those 
tenants  and  independent  farmers  who  are  neither  landlords 
nor  steady  employers,  nor  expect  to  become  such.  But  what 


THE   AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  309 

now  is  the  attitude  of  laborers,  tenants,  etc.,  towards  Socialism, 
and  what  program  do  the  Socialists  offer  to  attract  them? 
Let  us  first  consider  a  few  general  reforms  on  which  all 
Socialists  would  agree  and  which  would  be  acceptable  to  all 
classes  of  agriculturists.  Socialists  differ  upon  certain  funda- 
mental alterations  in  their  program  which  have  been  proposed 
in  order  to  adapt  it  to  agriculture.  Aside  from  these,  all 
Socialist  parties  wish  to  do  everything  that  is  possible  to 
attract  agriculturists.  They  favor  such  measures  as  the 
nationalization  of  forests,  irrigation,  state  fire  insurance,  the 
nationalization  of  transportation,  the  extension  of  free  educa- 
tion and  especially  of  free  agricultural  education,  the  organ- 
ization of  free  medical  assistance,  graduated  income  and  inher- 
itance taxes,  and  the  decrease  of  military  expenditures,  etc. 
It  will  be  seen  that  all  these  reforms  are  such  as  might  be, 
and  often  are,  adopted  by  parties  which  have  nothing  to  do 
with  Socialism.  Community  ownership  of  forests  and  na- 
tional subsidies  for  roads  are  urged  by  so  conservative  a 
body  as  Mr.  Roosevelt's  Commission  on  Country  Life. 
They  are  all  typical  "State  Socialist"  (i.e.  State  capitalist) 
measures,  justifiable  and  indispensable,  but  not  intimately 
related  with  the  program  of  Socialism.  The  indorsement 
of  such  measures  might  indeed  assure  the  Socialists  the 
friendly  cooperation  of  political  factions  representing  the 
agriculturists,  but  it  could  scarcely  secure  for  them  the  same 
partisan  support  in  the  country  as  they  have  obtained 
from  the  workingmen  of  the  towns. 

Besides  such  legislative  reforms  as  the  above,  the  Socialists 
generally  favor  legislative  encouragement  for  every  form  of 
agricultural  cooperation.  Kautsky  says  that  cooperative 
associations  limited  to  purchase  or  sale,  or  for  financing  pur- 
poses, have  no  special  connection  with  Socialism,  but  favors 
productive  cooperation,  and  in  France  this  is  one  of  the  chief 
measures  advocated  by  the  most  ardent  of  the  Socialist 
agriculturist  agitators,  Compere-Morel,  who  was  elected  to 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  from  an  agricultural  district. 
Compere-Morel  notes  that  the  above-mentioned  govern- 
mental measures  of  the  State  Socialistic  variety  are  likely  to 
be  introduced  by  reformers  who  have  no  sympathy  either  with 
Socialism  or  with  labor  unions,  and  as  a  counterweight  he 
lays  a  great  emphasis  on  cooperative  organizations  for  pro- 
duction, which  could  work  with  the  labor  unions  and  their 
cooperative  stores  and  also  with  Socialist  municipalities. 


310  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

In  France  and  elsewhere  there  is  already  a  strong  movement 
to  municipalize  the  milk  supply,  the  municipalization  of 
slaughterhouses  is  far  advanced,  and  municipal  bakeries 
are  a  probability  of  the  near  future.  Such  cooperative 
organizations,  however,  like  the  legislative  proposals  above 
mentioned,  are  already  so  widely  in  actual  operation  and  are 
so  generally  supported  by  powerful  non-Socialist  organiza- 
tions that  Socialist  support  can  be  of  comparatively  little 
value. 

There  is  no  reason  why  a  collectivist  but  capitalist  democ- 
racy should  not  favor  both  associations  for  productive 
cooperation  and  friendly  relations  between  these  and  col- 
lectivist municipalities;  nor  why  they  should  fail  to  favor 
an  enlightened  labor  policy  in  such  cases,  at  least  as  far  as 
the  resulting  increase  of  efficiency  in  the  laborer  justified  it, 
i.e.  as  long  as  his  product  rises,  as  a  result  of  such  reforms, 
faster  than  what  it  costs  to  introduce  them. 

Socialists  also  favor  the  nationalization  of  the  land,  but 
without  the  expropriation  of  self-employing  farmers,  as 
these  are  felt  to  be  more  sinned  against  than  sinning.  "  With 
the  present  conservative  nature  of  our  farmers,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  a  number  of  them  would  [under  Socialism] 
continue  to  work  in  the  present  manner,"  Kautsky  says. 
"The  proletarian  governmental  power  would  have  absolutely 
no  inclination  to  take  over  such  little  businesses.  As  yet 
no  Socialist  who  is  to  be  taken  seriously  has  ever  demanded 
that  the  farmers  should  be  expropriated,  or  that  their  goods 
should  be  confiscated.  It  is  much  more  probable  that  each 
little  farmer  would  be  permitted  to  work  on  as  he  has  pre- 
viously done.  The  farmer  has  nothing  to  fear  from  a  Social- 
ist regime.  Indeed,  it  is  highly  probable,"  he  adds,  "that 
these  agricultural  industries  would  receive  considerable 
strengthening  through  the  new  regime." 

Socialists  generally  agree  with  Mr.  A.  M.Simons's  resolution 
at  the  last  American  Socialist  Convention  (1910) :  "So  long 
as  tools  are  used  merely  by  individual  handicraftsmen,  they 
present  no  problem  of  ownership  which  the  Socialist  is  com- 
pelled to  solve.  The  same  is  true  of  land.  Collective 
ownership  is  urged  by  the  Socialist,  not  as  an  end  in  itself, 
not  as  a  part  of  a  Utopian  scheme,  but  as  the  means  of  pre- 
venting exploitation,  and  wherever  individual  ownership 
is  an  agency  of  exploitation,  then  such  ownership  is  opposed 
by  Socialism."  (6) 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  311 

Exploitation  here  refers  to  the  employment  of  laborers, 
and  this  is  the  central  point  of  the  Socialist  policy.  To  the 
Socialists  the  land  question  and  the  labor  question  are  one. 
Every  agricultural  policy  must  deal  with  both.  If  we  were 
confronted  to-day  exclusively  by  large  agricultural  estates, 
the  Socialist  policy  would  be  the  same  as  in  other  industries. 
All  agricultural  capital  would  be  nationalized  or  municipal- 
ized as  fast  as  it  became  sufficiently  highly  organized  to  make 
this  practicable.  And  as  the  ground  rent  can  be  taken  sep- 
arately, and  with  the  least  difficulty,  this  would  be  the  first 
to  go.  Agricultural  labor,  in  the  meanwhile,  would  be  organ- 
ized and  as  the  day  approached  when  the  Socialists  were 
about  to  gain  control  of  the  government,  and  the  wages  of 
government  employees  began  rapidly  to  rise,  those  of  agri- 
cultural and  all  other  privately  employed  labor  would  rise 
also,  until  private  profits  were  destroyed  and  the  process  of 
socialization  brought  rapidly  to  completion. 

But  where  the  scale  of  production  is  so  small  that  the 
farmer  and  his  family  do  the  work  and  do  not  habitually  hire 
outside  labor,  the  whole  case  is  different.  The  chief  exploita- 
tion here  is  self-exploitation.  The  capital  owned  is  so  small 
that  it  may  be  compared  in  value  with  the  skilled  worker's 
trade  education,  especially  when  we  consider  the  small  return 
it  brings  in,  allowing  for  wages  for  the  farmer  and  his  family. 
Even  though,  as  owner,  he  receives  that  part  of  the  rise  in 
the  value  of  his  land  due  to  the  general  increase  of  population 
and  wealth  and  not  to  his  own  labor  (the  unearned  incre- 
ment),'his  income  is  less  than  that  of  many  skilled  laborers. 

Two  widely  different  policies  are  for  these  reasons  adopted 
by  all  reformers  when  dealing  with  large  agricultural  estates 
and  small  self-employing  farmers.  On  this  point  there  is 
little  room  for  difference  of  opinion.  But  small  farmers 
are  not  a  sharply  defined  class.  They  are  constantly  re- 
cruited from  agricultural  laborers  and  tenants  on  the  one 
hand,  and  are  constantly  becoming  employing  farmers  on 
the  other  —  or  the  process  may  take  the  opposite  course, 
large  farms  may  break  up  and  small  farmers  may  become 
laborers  —  for  all  or  a  part  of  their  time.  All  agricultural 
reforms  may  be  viewed  not  only  in  their  relation  to  existing 
small  farmers,  but  as  to  their  effect  on  the  increase  or  decrease 
of  the  relative  proportions  of  small  self-employing  farmers, 
of  employing  farmers,  and  of  agricultural  laborers. 

And  here  appears  the  fundamental  distinction  between  the 


312  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Socialist  program  and  that  of  collectivist  capitalism  as  far 
as  the  small  farmers  are  concerned.  Socialists  agree  in  want- 
ing to  aid  those  small  farmers  who  are  neither  capitalists 
nor  employers  on  a  sufficient  scale  to  classify  them  with  those 
elements,  but  they  neither  wish  to  perpetuate  the  system  of 
small  farms  nor  to  obstruct  the  development  of  the  more  pro- 
ductive large-scale  farming  and  the  normal  increase  of  an 
agricultural  working  class  ready  for  cooperative  or  govern- 
mental employment.  They  point  to  the  universal  law  that 
large-scale  production  is  more  economical,  and  show  that 
this  applies  to  agriculture.  Small  farming  strictly  limits 
the  point  to  which  the  income  of  the  agricultural  population 
can  rise,  prevents  the  cheapening  of  the  production  of  food, 
and  furnishes  a  constant  stream  of  cheap  labor  composed  of 
discontented  agricultural  laborers  who  prefer  the  more  steady 
income,  limited  hours,  and  better  conditions  of  wage  earners. 

"Even  the  most  energetic  champions  of  small  farming,"  says 
Kautsky,  "do  not  make  the  least  attempt  to  show  its  superiority, 
as  this  would  be  a  hopeless  task.  What  they  maintain  is  only  the 
superiority  of  labor  on  one's  own  property  to  wage  labor  for  a  strange 
exploiter.  .  .  .  But  if  the  large  farm  offers  the  greater  possibility 
of  lessening  the  work  of  the  agricultural  laborers,  then  it  would  be 
a  betrayal  of  the  latter  to  set  before  them  as  a  goal,  not  the  capture 
and  technical  development  of  large  forms,  but  their  break  up  into 
numerous  small  farms.  That  would  mean  nothing  less  than  a  willing- 
ness to  perpetuate  the  drudgery  under  which  the  agricultural  laborers 
and  small  farmers  now  suffer."  (7) 

But  how  shall  Socialists  aid  small  farmers  without  increas- 
ing the  number  of  small  farms  ?  It  might  be  thought  that 
the  nationalization  of  the  land  would  solve  the  problem. 
The  government,  once  become  the  general  landlord,  could  use 
the  rent  fund  to  improve  the  condition  of  all  classes  of  agri- 
culturists, without  unduly  favoring  any,  agricultural  evolu- 
tion could  take  its  natural  course,  and  the  most  economical 
method  of  production,  i.e,  large  farms  or  large  cooperative 
associations,  would  gradually  come  to  predominate.  But 
the  capitalist  collectivists  who  now  control  or  will  soon  control 
governments,  far  from  feeling  any  anxiety  about  the  persist- 
ence of  small-scale  farming,  believe  that  the  small  farmers 
can  be  made  into  the  most  reliable  props  of  capitalism. 
Accordingly  collectivist  reformers  either  promote  schemes 
of  division  of  large  estates  and  favor  the  creation  of  large 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  313 

masses  of  small  owners  by  this  and  every  other  available 
means,  such  as  irrigation  or  reclamation  projects,  or  if  they 
indorse  nationalization  of  the  land  in  order  to  get  the  un- 
earned increment  for  their  governments,  they  still  make  the 
leases  on  as  small  a  scale  and  revaluations  at  as  long  intervals 
as  possible,  and  so  do  almost  as  much  artificially  to  perpetuate 
the  small  farm  under  this  system  as  they  could  by  furthering 
private  ownership. 

Although  there  is  no  necessary  and  immediate  conflict  of 
interest  between  wage  earners  and  small  farmers,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  it  is  impossible  for  Socialists  to  offer  the  small 
farmers  as  much  as  the  capitalist  collectivists  do,  —  for  the 
latter  are  willing  in  this  instance  to  promote,  for  political 
purposes,  an  uneconomic  mode  of  production  which  is  a 
burden  on  all  society. 

Here,  however,  appears  an  economic  tendency  that  relieves 
the  situation  for  the  Socialist.  Under  private  ownership  or 
land  nationalization  with  long  leases  and  small-scale  farms, 
it  is  only  once  in  a  generation  or  even  less  frequently  that 
farms  are  subdivided.  But  the  amount  of  capital  and  labor 
that  can  be  profitably  applied  to  a  given  area  of  land,  the  in- 
tensity of  farming,  increases  very  rapidly.  The  former  self- 
employing  farmer,  everywhere  encouraged  by  governments, 
soon  comes  to  employ  steadily  one  or  more  laborers.  And 
it  is  notable  that  in  every  country  of  the  world  these  middle- 
sized  or  moderate-sized  farms  are  growing  more  rapidly  than 
either  the  large-scale  or  the  one-family  farms.  This  has  an 
economic  and  a  political  explanation.  Though  large  farms 
have  more  economic  advantages  than  small,  the  latter  have 
nothing  to  expend  for  superintendence  and  get  much  more 
work  from  each  person  occupied.  The  middle-sized  farms 
preserve  these  advantages  and  gradually  come  also  to  employ 
much  of  the  most  profitable  machinery,  that  is  out  of 
reach  of  the  small  farmer.  Politically  their  position  is  still 
stronger.  They  are  neither  rich  nor  few  like  the  large  land- 
holders. Their  employees  are  one,  two,  or  three  on  each  farm, 
and  isolated. 

Here,  then,  is  the  outcome  of  the  agricultural  situation  that 
chiefly  concerns  the  Socialist.  The  middle-sized  farmer  is  a 
small  capitalist  and  employer  who,  like  the  rest  of  his  kind, 
will  in  every  profound  labor  crisis  be  found  with  the  large 
capitalist.  His  employees  will  outnumber  him  as  voters  and 
will  have  little  hope  that  the  government  will  intervene  some 


314  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

day  to  make  them  either  proprietors  or  possessors  of  long- 
term  leases.  The  capital,  moreover,  to  run  this  kind  of  farm 
or  to  compete  with  it,  will  be  greater  and  greater  and  more 
and  more  out  of  their  agricultural  laborer's  reach.  These 
employees  will  be  Socialists. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  the  divisions  among 
the  Socialists  on  the  agricultural  question.  The  Socialist 
policy  as  to  agriculture  may  be  divided  into  three  peri- 
ods. During  the  ascendency  of  capitalistic  collectivism 
it  will  be  powerless  to  do  more  than  to  support  the  col- 
lectivist  reforms,  including  partial  nationalization  of  the 
land,  partial  appropriation  of  unearned  increment  by  na- 
tional or  local  governments,  municipal  and  cooperative 
production,  and  the  numerous  reforms  already  mentioned. 
In  the  second  period,  the  approach  of  Socialism  will  hasten 
all  these  changes  automatically  through  the  rapid  rise  in 
wages,  and  in  the  third  period,  when  the  Socialists  are  in 
power,  special  measures  will  be  taken  still  further  to  hasten 
the  process  until  all  land  is  gradually  nationalized  and  all 
agricultural  production  carried  on  by  governmental  bodies 
or  cooperative  societies  of  actual  workers. 

If  the  Socialists  gain  control  of  any  government,  or  if 
they  come  near  enough  to  doing  this  to  be  able  to  force  con- 
cessions at  the  cost  of  capital,  a  double  effect  will  be  produced 
on  agriculture.  The  general  rise  in  wages  will  destroy  the 
profits  of  many  farmer  employers,  and  it  will  offer  to  the 
smallest  self-employing  farmers  the  possibility  of  an  income 
as  wage  earners  so  much  larger,  and  conditions  so  much 
better,  than  anything  they  can  hope  for  as  independent  pro- 
ducers that  they  will  cease  to  prefer  self-employment.  The 
high  cost  of  labor  will  favor  both  large  scale  production,  either 
capitalistic  or  cooperative,  and  national,  state,  county,  and 
municipal  farms.  Without  any  but  an  automatic  economic 
pressure,  small-scale  and  middle-scale  farming  would  tend 
rapidly  to  give  place  to  these  other  higher  forms,  and  these 
in  turn  would  tend  to  become  more  and  more  highly  organized 
as  other  industries  have  done,  until  social  production  became 
a  possibility.  Not  only  would  there  be  no  need  of  coercive 
legislative  measures,  but  the  automatic  pressure  would  be, 
not  that  of  misery  or  bankruptcy  pressing  the  self-employing 
farmer  from  behind,  but  of  a  larger  income  and  better  condi- 
tions drawing  the  majority  forward  to  more  developed  and 
social  forms  of  production. 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  315 

In  France  a  considerable  and  increasing  number  of  the 
Socialist  members  of  Parliament  are  elected  by  the  peasantry, 
and  the  same  is  true  of  Italy.  In  nerve"  the  French  have 
developed  a  world-famed  ultra-revolutionary  who  always 
makes  his  appeal  to  peasants  as  well  as  workers,  and  in 
Compere-Morel,  one  of  the  most  able  of  those  economists 
and  organizers  of  the  international  movement  who  give  the 
agriculturists  their  chief  attention.  The  latter  has  recently 
summed  up  the  position  of  the  French  Party  in  a  few  incisive 
paragraphs  —  which  show  its  similarity  to  that  of  the  Ameri- 
cans. His  main  idea  is  to  let  economic  evolution  take  its 
course,  which,  in  proportion  as  labor  is  effectively  organized, 
will  inevitably  lead  towards  collective  ownership  and  opera- 
tion and  so  pave  the  way  for  Socialism :  — 

"As  to  small  property,  it  is  not  our  mission  either  to  hasten  or  to 
precipitate  its  disappearance.  A  product  of  labor,  quite  often  being 
merely  a  tool  of  the  one  who  is  detaining  it,  not  only  do  we  respect 
it,  we  do  something  more  yet,  we  relieve  it  from  taxes,  usury,  scan- 
dalous charges  on  the  part  of  the  middlemen,  whose  victim  it  is. 
And  this  will  be  done  in  order  to  make  possible  its  free  evolution 
towards  superior  forms  of  exploitation  and  ownership,  which  be- 
come more  and  more  inevitable. 

"This  means  that  there  is  no  necessity  at  all  to  appeal  to  violence, 
to  use  constraint  and  power  in  order  to  inaugurate  in  the  domain 
of  rural  production,  the  only  mode  of  ownership  fit  to  utilize  the  new 
technical  agricultural  tools :  collective  ownership. 

"On  the  other  hand,  a  new  form  of  ownership  cannot  be  imposed; 
it  is  the  new  form  of  ownership  which  is  imposing  itself. 

"It  is  in  vain  that  they  use  the  most  powerful,  the  most  artifical, 
means  to  develop,  to  multiply,  and  animate  the  private  ownership 
of  the  land ;  the  social  ownership  of  the  land  will  impose  itself, 
through  the  force  of  events,  on  the  most  stubborn,  on  the  most  ob- 
stinate, of  the  partisans  of  individual  ownership  of  the  rural  domain." 

The  French  Socialists  do  not  propose  to  interfere  with 
titles  of  any  but  very  large  properties,  or  even  with  inherit- 
ance. Whether  they  have  to  meet  government  ownership 
and  33-year  leases  now  being  tried  on  a  small  scale  in  New 
Zealand,  or  whether  a  capitalist  collectivist  government 
allows  agricultural  evolution  and  land  titles  to  take  their 
natural  course,  they  expect  to  corner  the  labor  supply,  and  in 
this  way  ultimately  to  urge  agriculture  along  in  the  Socialist 
direction.  From  the  moment  they  have  done  this,  they 
expect  a  steady  tendency  on  the  part  of  agriculturists  to  look 


316  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

forward,   as   the  workingmen  have  done,  to   the  Socialist 
State:  — 

"The  question  arises,  under  a  Socialist  regime,  will  small  property, 
the  property  cultivated  by  the  owner  and  his  family,  be  trans- 
missible, allowed  to  be  sold,  or  left  as  inheritance  to  the  children, 
to  the  nephews,  and  even  to  very  remote  cousins  ?  From  the  mo- 
ment this  property  is  not  used  as  an  instrument  of  exploitation  — 
and  in  a  Socialist  society,  labor  not  being  sold,  it  could  never  become 
one  —  what  do  we  care  whether  it  changes  hands  every  morning, 
whether  it  travels  around  through  a  whole  family  or  country  ?  " 

For,  since  the  Socialist  State  will  furnish  work  for  all  that 
apply,  at  the  best  remuneration,  and  under  the  best  condi- 
tions, especially  as  it  will  do  this  in  its  own  agricultural  enter- 
prises, relatively  few  farmers  will  be  able  to  pay  enough  to 
secure  other  workers  than  those  of  their  own  families. 

In  the  United  States  the  Party  has  definitely  decided  by  a 
large  majority,  in  a  referendum  vote,  that  it  does  not  intend 
to  try  to  disturb  the  self-employing  farmer  in  any  way  in 
his  occupation  and  use  of  the  land.  In  a  declaration  adopted 
in  1909,  when,  by  a  referendum  vote  of  nearly  two  to  one, 
the  demand  for  the  immediate  collective  ownership  of  the 
land  was  dropped  from  the  platform,  the  following  paragraph 
was  inserted :  — 

"There  can  be  no  absolute  private  title  to  land.  All  pri- 
vate titles,  whether  called  fee  simple  or  otherwise,  are  and 
must  be  subordinate  to  the  public  title.  The  Socialist  Party 
strives  to  prevent  land  from  being  used  for  the  purpose  of 
exploitation  and  speculation.  It  demands  the  collective 
possession,  control,  or  management  of  land  to  whatever 
extent  may  be  necessary  to  attain  that  end.  It  is  not  opposed 
to  the  occupation  and  possession  of  land  by  those  using  it 
in  a  useful  bona  fide  manner  without  exploitation."  (My 
italics.) 

Those  American  Socialists  who  have  given  most  attention 
to  the  subject,  like  Mr.  Simons,  have  long  since  made  up 
their  minds  that  there  is  no  hope  whatever  either  for  the 
victory  or  even  for  the  rapid  development  of  Socialism  in 
this  country  unless  it  takes  some  root  among  the  agricul- 
turists. Mr.  Simons  insists  that  the  Socialists  should  array 
against  the  forces  of  conservatism,  privilege,  and  exploita- 
tion, "  all  those  whose  labor  assists  in  the  production  of 
wealth,  for  all  these  make  up  the  army  of  exploited,  and  all 
are  interested  in  the  abolition  of  exploitation." 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  317 

"In  this  struggle,"  he  continues,  "farmers  and  factory 
wage  workers  must  make  common  cause.  Any  smaller 
combination,  any  division  in  the  ranks  of  the  workers,  must 
render  success  impossible.  In  a  country  where  fundamental 
changes  of  policy  are  secured  at  the  ballot  box,  nothing  can 
be  accomplished  without  united  action  by  all  classes  of 
workers.  .  .  .  The  better  organization  of  the  factory  workers 
of  the  cities,  due  to  their  position  in  the  midst  of  a  higher 
developed  capitalism  and  more  concentrated  industry,  makes 
them  in  no  way  independent  of  their  rural  brothers.  So  long 
as  they  are  not  numerous  enough  to  win,  they  are  helpless. 
'A  miss  is  as  good  as  a  mile/  and  coming  close  to  a  majority 
avails  almost  nothing."  (8) 

Looking  at  the  question  after  this  from  the  farmers' 
standpoint,  Mr.  Simons  argues  that  many  of  the  latter  are 
well  aware  that  the  ownership  of  a  farm  is  nothing  more  than 
the  ownership  of  a  job,  and  that  the  capitalists  who  own 
the  mortgages,  railroads,  elevators,  meat-packing  establish- 
ments, and  factories  which  produce  agricultural  machinery 
and  other  needed  supplies,  control  the  lives  and  income  of  the 
agriculturists  almost  as  rigidly  as  they  do  those  of  their  own 
employees.  Mr.  Simons's  views  on  this  point  also  are  prob- 
ably those  of  a  majority  of  the  party. 

Mr.  Victor  Berger  does  not  consider  that  farmers  belong 
to  that  class  by  whom  and  for  whom  Socialism  has  come  into 
being.  "The  average  farmer  is  not  a  proletarian,"  he  says, 
"yet  he  is  a  producer."  (9)  This  would  seem  to  imply  that 
the  farmer  should  have  Socialist  consideration,  though  per- 
haps not  equal  consideration  with  the  workingman.  Mr. 
Berger's  main  argument  apparently  was  that  the  farmers 
must  be  included  in  the  movement,  not  because  this  is  de- 
manded by  principle  but  because  "you  will  never  get  con- 
trol of  the  United  States  unless  you  have  the  farming  class 
with  you,"  as  he  said  at  a  Socialist  convention. 

Thus  there  are  three  possible  attitudes  of  Socialists  towards 
the  self-employing  farmer,  and  all  three  are  represented  in 
the  movement.  Kautsky,  Vandervelde,  and  many  others 
believe  that  after  all  he  is  not  a  proletarian,  and  therefore 
should  not  or  cannot  be  included  in  the  movement.  The 
French  Socialists  and  many  Americans  believe  that  he  is 
practically  a  proletarian  and  should  and  can  be  included. 
The  "reformists"  in  countries  where  he  is  very  numerous 
believe  he  should  be  included,  even  when  (Berger)  they 


318  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

do  not  consider  him  as  a  proletarian.  The  Socialist  move- 
ment, on  the  whole,  now  stands  with  Kautsky  and  Vander- 
velde,  and  this  is  undoubtedly  the  correct  position  until  the 
Socialists  are  near  to  political  supremacy.  The  French  and 
American  view,  that  the  self-employing  farmer  is  practically 
a  wage  earner,  is  spreading,  and  though  this  view  is  false  and 
dangerous  if  prematurely  applied  (i.e.  to-day)  it  will  become 
correct  in  the  future  when  collectivist  capitalism  has  ex- 
hausted its  reforms  and  the  small  farmer  is  becoming  an 
employee  of  the  highly  productive  government  farms  or  a 
profit-sharer  in  cooperative  associations. 

At  the  last  American  Socialist  Convention  (1910)  Mr. 
Simons's  resolution  carefully  avoided  the  "reformist"  posi- 
tion of  trying  to  prop  up  either  private  property  or  small- 
scale  production,  by  the  statement  that,  while  "no  Socialist 
Party  proposes  the  immediate  expropriation  of  the  farm  owner 
who  is  cultivating  his  own  farm,"  that,  on  the  other  hand, 
"it  is  not  for  the  Socialist  Party  to  guarantee  the  private 
ownership  of  any  productive  property."  He  remarked  in 
the  Convention  that  the  most  prominent  French  Marxists, 
Guesde  and  Lafargue,  had  approved  the  action  of  the  recent 
French  Socialist  Congress,  which  had  "guaranteed  the  peas- 
ant ownership  of  his  farm,"  but  he  would  not  accept  this 
action  as  good  Socialism.  Mr.  Berger  offered  the  same  criti- 
cism of  the  French  Socialists,  and  added  that  the  guarantee 
would  not  be  worth  anything  in  any  case,  because  our  grand- 
children would  not  be  ruled  by  it. 

However,  there  is  a  minority  ready  to  compromise  everything  in 
this  question.  Of  all  American  States,  Oklahoma  has  been  the  one 
where  Socialists  have  given  the  closest  attention  to  agricultural 
problems.  The  Socialists  have  obtained  a  considerable  vote  in  every 
county  of  this  agricultural  State,  and  with  20,000  to  25,000  votes 
they  include  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  electorate.  It  is  true 
that  their  platform,  though  presented  at  the  last  national  convention, 
has  not  been  passed  upon,  and  may  later  be  disapproved  in  several 
important  clauses,  but  it  is  important  as  showing  the  farthest  point 
the  American  movement  has  gone  in  this  direction.  Its  most  im- 
portant points  are  :  — 

The  retention  and  constant  enlargement  of  the  public  domain. 

By  retaining  school  and  other  public  lands. 

By  purchasing  of  arid  and  overflow  lands  and  the  State  reclama- 
tion of  all  such  lands  now  held  by  the  State  or  that  may  be  acquired 
by  the  State. 

By  the  purchase  of  all  lands  sold  for  the  non-payment  of  taxes. 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  319 

Separation  of  the  department  of  agriculture  from  the  political 
government. 

Election  of  all  members  and  officers  of  the  Board  of  Agriculture 
by  the  direct  vote  of  the  actual  farmers. 

Erection  by  the  State  of  grain  elevators  and  warehouses  for  the 
storage  of  farm  products;  these  elevators  and  warehouses  to  be 
managed  by  the  Board  of  Agriculture. 

Organization  by  the  Board  of  Agriculture  of  free  agricultural 
education  and  the  establishment  of  model  farms. 

Encouragement  by  the  Board  of  Agriculture  of  cooperative 
societies  of  farmers  — 

For  the  buying  of  seed  and  fertilizers. 

For  the  purchase  and  common  use  of  implements  and  machinery. 

For  the  preparing  and  sale  of  produce. 

Organization  by  the  State  of  loans  on  mortgages  and  warehouse 
certificates,  the  interests  charges  to  cover  cost  only. 

State  insurance  against  disease  of  animals,  diseases  of  plants, 
insect  pests,  hail,  flood,  storm,  and  fire. 

Exemption  from  taxation  and  execution  of  dwellings,  tools,  farm 
animals,  implements,  and  improvements  to  the  amount  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars. 

A  graduated  tax  on  the  value  of  rented  land  and  land  held  for  spec- 
ulation. 

Absentee  landlords  to  assess  their  own  lands,  the  State  reserving 
the  right  to  purchase  such  lands  at  their  assessed  value  plus  10  per 
cent. 

Land  now  in  the  possession  of  the  State  or  hereafter  acquired 
through  purchase,  reclamation,  or  tax  sales  to  be  rented  to  landless 
farmers  under  the  supervision  of  the  Board  of  Agriculture  at  the 
prevailing  rate  of  share  rent  or  its  equivalent.  The  payment  of 
such  rent  to  cease  as  soon  as  the  total  amount  of  rent  paid  is  equal 
to  the  value  of  the  land,  and  the  tenant  thereby  acquires  for  himself 
and  his  children  the  right  of  occupancy.  The  title  to  all  such  lands 
remaining  with  the  commonwealth.  (10) 

I  have  italicized  the  most  significant  items.  The  preference 
given  to  landless  farmers  in  the  last  paragraph  shows  that  the  party 
in  Oklahoma  does  not  propose  to  distribute  its  greatest  favors  to 
those  who  are  now  in  possession  of  even  the  smallest  amount  of  land. 
On  the  other  hand,  once  the  land  is  governmentally  "owned"  and 
speculation  and  landlordism  (or  renting)  are  provided  against,  the 
farmer  passes  "the  right  of  occupancy  "  of  this  land  on  to  his  chil- 
dren. European  Socialist  parties,  with  one  exception,  have  not  gone 
so  far  as  this,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  the  American  Party  will  sustain 
such  a  long  step  towards  permanent  private  property.  It  may  well 
be  doubted  whether  the  Socialist  movement  will  favor  giving  to 
children  the  identical  privileges  their  parents  had,  simply  because 
they  are  the  children  of  these  parents,  especially  if  these  privileges 
had  been  materially  increased  in  value  during  the  parents'  lifetime 


320  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

by  community  effort,  i.e.  if  there  has  been  any  large  "unearned  in- 
crement." Nor  will  they  grant  any  additional  right  after  forty 
years  of  payments  or  any  other  term,  but,  on  the  contrary,  as  the 
land  rises,  through  the  community's  efforts  they  would  undoubtedly 
see  to  it  that  rent  was  correspondingly  increased.  Socialists  demand, 
not  penalties  against  landlordism,  but  the  community  appropriation 
of  rent —  whether  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  actual  farmer  or  landlord. 
Why,  moreover,  seek  to  discriminate  against  those  who  are  in  pos- 
session now,  and  then  favor  those  who  will  be  in  possession  after 
the  new  dispensation,  by  giving  the  latter  an  almost  permanent 
title?  May  there  not  be  as  many  landless  argicultural  workers 
forty  years  hence  as  there  are  now  ?  Why  should  those  who  happen 
to  be  landless  in  one  generation  instead  of  the  next  receive  superior 
rights? 

Not  only  Henry  George,  but  Herbert  Spencer  and  the  present 
governments  of  Great  Britain  (for  all  but  agricultural  land)  and 
Germany  (in  the  case  of  cities),  recognize  that  the  element  of  land 
values  due  to  the  community  effort  should  go  to  the  community. 
The  political  principle  that  gives  the  community  no  permanent 
claim  to  ground  rent  and  is  ready  to  give  a  "right  of  occupancy"  for 
two  or  more  lifetimes  (for  nothing  is  said  in  the  Oklahoma  program 
about  the  land  returning  to  the  government)  without  any  provisions 
for  increased  rentals  and  with  no  rents  at  all  after  forty  years,  is 
reactionary  as  compared  with  recent  land  reform  programs  elsewhere 
(as  that  of  New  Zealand). 

Even  Mr.  Roosevelt's  Commission  on  Country  Life  goes  nearly 
as  far  as  the  Oklahoma  Socialists  when  it  condemns  speculation  in 
farm  lands  and  tenancy ;  while  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself  has  suggested 
as  a  remedy  in  certain  instances  the  leasing  of  parts  of  the  national 
domain.  Indeed,  the  "progressive"  capitalists  everywhere  favor 
either  small  self-employing  farmers  or  national  ownership  and  leases 
for  long  terms  and  in  small  allotments,  and  as  "State  Socialism" 
advances  it  will  unquestionably  lean  towards  the  latter  system. 
There  is  nothing  Socialistic  either  in  government  encouragement 
either  of  one-family  farms  or  in  a  national  leasing  system  with  long- 
term  leases  as  long  as  the  new  revenue  received  goes  for  the  usual 
"State  Socialistic"  purposes. 

The  American  Party,  moreover,  has  failed  so  far  to  come  out 
definitely  in  favor  of  the  capitalist-collectivist  principle  of 
the  State  appropriation  of  ground  rent,  already  indorsed  by 
Marx  in  1847  and  again  in  1883  (see  his  letter  about  Henry 
George,  Part  I,  Chapter  VIII).  In  preparing  model  constitu- 
tions for  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  (August,  1910),  the  Na- 
tional Executive  Committee  took  up  the  question  of  taxation 
and  recommended  graduated  income  and  inheritance  taxes, 
but  nothing  was  said  about  the  State  taking  the  future  rise  in 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  321 

rents.  This  is  not  a  reaction  when  compared  to  the  present 
world  status  of  non-Socialist  land  reform,  for  the  taxation 
of  unearned  increment  has  not  yet  been  extended  to  agri- 
cultural land  in  use,  but  it  is  decidedly  a  reaction  when  com- 
pared with  the  Socialists'  own  position  in  the  past. 

In  a  semiagricultural  country  like  the  United  States  it 
is  natural  that  "State  Socialism"  should  influence  the  Social- 
ist Party  in  its  treatment  of  the  land  question  more  than  in 
any  other  direction,  and  this  influence  is,  perhaps,  the  gravest 
danger  that  threatens  the  party  at  the  present  writing. 

By  far  the  most  important  popular  organ  of  Socialism  in  this 
country  is  the  Appeal  to  Reason  of  Girard,  Kansas,  which  now  cir- 
culates nearly  half  a  million  copies  weekly  —  a  large  part  of  which 
go  into  rural  communities.  The  Appeal  endeavors,  with  some 
success,  to  reflect  the  views  of  the  average  party  member,  without 
supporting  any  faction.  As  Mr.  Debs  is  one  of  its  editors,  it  may 
be  understood  that  it  stands  fundamentally  against  the  compromise 
of  any  essential  Socialist  principle.  And  yet  the  exigencies  of  a 
successful  propaganda  among  small  landowners  or  tenants  who  either 
want  to  become  landowners  or  to  secure  a  lease  that  would  amount 
to  almost  the  same  thing,  is  such  as  to  drive  the  Appeal  into  a  posi- 
tion, not  only  as  to  the  land  question,  but  also  to  other  questions, 
that  has  in  it  many  elements  of  "State  Socialism." 

A  special  propaganda  edition  (January  27, 1902)  is  typical.  Along 
with  many  revolutionary  declarations,  such  as  that  Socialism  aims 
not  only  at  the  socialization  of  the  means  of  production,  but  also  at 
the  socialization  of  power,  we  find  others  that  would  be  accepted  by 
any  capitalist  "State  Socialist."  Government  activities  as  to  schools 
and  roads  are  mentioned  as  examples  of  socialization,  while  that 
part  of  the  land  still  in  the  hands  of  our  present  capitalist  govern- 
ment is  referred  to  as  being  socialized.  The  use  of  vacant  and  un- 
used lands  (with  "a  fair  return"  for  this  use)  by  city,  township,  and 
county  officials  in  order  to  raise  and  sell  products  and  furnish  em- 
ployment, as  was  done  by  the  late  Mayor  Pingree  in  Detroit,  and 
even  the  public  ownership  of  freight  and  passenger  automobiles,  are 
spoken  of  as  "purely  Socialist  propositions."  And,  finally,  the 
laws  of  Oklahoma  are  said  to  permit  socialization  without  a  national 
victory  of  the  Socialists,  though  they  provide  merely  that  a  munici- 
pality may  engage  in  any  legitimate  business  enterprise,  and  could 
easily  be  circumscribed  by  state  constitutional  provisions  or  by 
federal  courts  if  real  Socialists  were  about  to  gain  control  of 
municipalities  and  State  legislature.  For  such  Socialists  would 
not  be  satisfied  merely  to  demand  the  abolition  of  private  landlordism 
and  unemployment  as  the  Appeal  does  in  this  instance,  since 
both  of  these  "institutions"  are  already  marked  for  destruction  by 
"State  capitalism,"  but  would  plan  public  employment  at  wages 


322  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

so  high  as  to  make  private  employment  unprofitable  and  all  but 
impossible,  so  high  that  the  self-employing  farmer  even  would  more 
and  more  frequently  prefer  to  quit  his  farm  and  go  to  work  on  a 
municipal,  State,  or  county  farm. 

The  probable  future  course  of  the  Party,  however,  is  fore- 
shadowed by  the  suggestions  made  by  Mr.  Simons  in  the 
report  referred  to,  which,  though  not  yet  voted  upon,  seemed 
to  meet  general  approval :  — 

"With  the  writers  of  the  Communist  Manifesto  we  agree 
in  the  principle  of  the  'application  of  all  rents  of  land  to 
public  purposes.'  To  this  end  we  advocate  the  taxing  of  all 
lands  to  their  full  rental  value,  the  income  therefrom  to  be 
applied  to  the  establishment  of  industrial  plants  for  the  pre- 
paring of  agricultural  products  for  final  consumption,  such  as 
packing  houses,  canneries,  cotton  gins,  grain  elevators,  storage 
and  market  facilities."  (a) 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Simons  here  indorses  the  most 
promising  line  of  agrarian  reform  under  capitalism.  But 
there  is  no  reason  why  capitalist  collectivism  may  not  take 
up  this  policy  when  it  reaches  a  somewhat  more  advanced 
stage.  The  tremendous  benefits  the  cities  will  secure  by  the 
gradual  appropriation  of  the  unearned  increment  will  almost 
inevitably  suggest  it  to  the  country  also.  This  will  immensely 
hasten  the  development  of  agriculture  and  the  numerical 

(a)  Mr.  Simons's  resolution  also  contains  another  proposition,  seemingly  at 
variance  with  this,  which  would  postpone  Socialist  action  indefinitely :  — 

"In  the  field  of  industry  what  the  Socialist  movement  demands  is  the  social 
ownership  and  control  of  the  socially  operated  means  of  production,  not  of 
all  means  of  production.  Only  to  a  very  small  extent  is  it  [the  land]  likely 
to  be,  for  many  years  to  come,  a  socially  operated  means  of  production." 

On  the  contrary,  it  would  seem  that  "State  Socialism,"  the  basis 
on  which  Socialists  must  build,  to  say  nothing  of  Socialism,  will  bring  about 
a  large  measure  of  government  ownership  of  land  in  the  interest  of  the  farmer 
of  the  individually  operated  farm.  Socialism,  it  is  true,  requires  besides 
government  ownership,  governmental  operation,  and  recognizes  that  this  is 
practicable  only  as  fast  as  agriculture  becomes  organized  like  other  industries. 
In  the  meanwhile  it  recognizes  either  in  gradual  government  ownership  or 
in  the  taxation  of  the  unearned  increment,  the  most  progressive  steps  that 
can  be  undertaken  by  a  capitalist  government  and  supports  them  even  where 
there  is  no  large-scale  production  or  social  operation.  For  "wherever  indivi- 
dual ownership  is  an  agency  of  exploitation,"  to  quote  Mr.  Simons's  own 
resolution,  "then  such  ownership  is  opposed  by  Socialism,"  i.e.  wherever  labor 
is  employed. 

The  Socialist  solution,  it  is  true,  can  only  come  with  "social  operation," 
but  that  does  not  mean  that  Socialism  has  nothing  to  say  to-day.  It  still 
favors  the  reforms  of  collectivist  capitalism.  Where  extended  national 
ownership  of  the  land  is  impracticable  there  remains  the  taxation  of  the 
future  unearned  increment.  To  drop  this  "demand"  also  is  to  subordinate 
Socialism  completely  to  small-scale  capitalism. 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  CLASSES  323 

increase  of  an  agricultural  working  class.  What  is  even  more 
important  is  that  it  will  teach  the  agricultural  laborers  that 
far  more  is  to  be  gained  by  the  political  overthrow  of  the  small 
capitalist  employing  farmers  and  by  claiming  a  larger  share 
of  the  benefit  of  these  public  funds  than  by  attempting  the 
more  and  more  difficult  task  of  saving  up  the  sum  needed  for 
acquiring  a  small  farm  or  leasing  one  for  a  long  term  from  the 
government. 

The  governmental  appropriation  of  agricultural  rent  and 
its  productive  expenditure  on  agriculture  will  in  all  probabil- 
ity be  carried  out,  even  if  not  prematurely  promised  at  the 
present  time,  by  collectivist  capitalism.  Moreover,  while 
this  great  reform  will  strengthen  Socialism  as  indicated,  it 
will  strengthen  capitalism  still  more,  especially  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  the  change.  Socialists  recognize,  with  Henry 
George,  that  ground  rent  may  be  nationalized  and  "tyranny 
and  spoliation  be  continued."  For  if  the  present  capitalistic 
state  gradually  became  the  general  landlord,  either  through 
the  extension  of  the  national  domain  or  through  land  taxation, 
greater  resources  would  be  put  into  the  hands  of  existing  class 
governments  than  by  any  other  means.  If,  for  example,  the 
Socialists  opposed  the  government  bank  in  Germany  they 
might  dread  even  more  the  present  government  becoming 
the  universal  landlord,  though  it  would  be  useless  to  try  to 
prevent  it. 

It  is  clear  that  such  a  reform  is  no  more  a  step  in  Socialism 
or  in  the  direction  of  Socialism  than  the  rest  of  the  capitalist 
collectivist  program.  But  it  is  a  step  in  the  development 
of  capitalism  and  will  ultimately  bring  society  to  a  point 
where  the  Socialists,  if  they  have  in  the  meanwhile  prepared 
themselves,  may  be  able  to  gain  the  supreme  power  over 
government  and  industry. 

Socialists  do  not  feel  that  the  agricultural  problem  will  be 
solved  at  all  for  a  large  part  of  the  agriculturists  (the  laborers) 
nor  in  the  most  satisfactory  manner  for  the  majority  (self- 
employing  farmers)  until  the  whole  problem  of  capitalism 
is  solved.  The  agricultural  laborers  they  claim  as  their  own 
to-day;  the  conditions  I  have  reviewed  lead  them  to  hope 
also  for  a  slow  but  steady  progress  among  the  smaller 
farmers. 


CHAPTER  III 
SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "WORKING  CLASS" 

IF  the  majority  of  Socialists  are  liberal  in  their  conception 
of  what  constitutes  the  "working  class,"  they  are  equally 
broad  in  their  view  as  to  what  classes  must  be  reckoned 
among  its  opponents.  They  are  aware  that  on  the  other 
side  in  this  struggle  will  be  found  all  those  classes  that  are 
willing  to  serve  capitalism  or  hope  to  rise  into  its  ranks. 

In  its  narrow  sense  the  term  "capitalist  class"  may  be  re- 
stricted to  mean  mere  idlers  and  parasites,  but  this  is  not  the 
sense  in  which  Socialists  usually  employ  it.  Mere  idlers  play 
an  infinitely  less  important  part  in  the  capitalist  world  than 
active  exploiters.  It  is  even  probable  that  in  the  course  of 
a  strenuous  struggle  the  capitalists  themselves  may  gradually 
tax  wholly  idle  classes  out  of  existence  and  so  actually 
strengthen  the  more  active  capitalists  by  ridding  them  of  this 
burden.  Active  exploiters  may  pass  some  of  their  time  in 
idleness  and  frivolous  consumption,  without  actual  degenera- 
tion, without  becoming  mere  parasites.  All  exploitation  is 
parasitism,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  every  exploiter  is 
nothing  more  than  a  parasite.  He  may  work  feverishly  at 
the  game  of  exploitation  and,  as  is  very  common  with  capi- 
talists, may  be  devoted  to  it  for  its  own  sake  and  for  the  power 
it  brings  rather  than  for  the  opportunity  to  consume  in  luxury 
or  idleness.  If  pure  parasitism  were  the  object  of  attack, 
as  certain  Socialists  suppose  it  to  be,  all  but  an  infinitesimal 
minority  of  mankind  would  already  be  Socialists. 

Nor  do  Socialists  imagine  that  the  capitalist  ranks  will 
ever  be  restricted  to  the  actual  capitalists,  those  whose  in- 
come is  derived  chiefly  from  their  possessions.  Take,  for 
example,  the  class  of  the  least  skilled  and  poorest-paid  laborers 
such  as  the  so-called  "casual  laborers,"  the  "submerged 
tenth"  —  those  who,  though  for  the  most  part  not  paupers, 
are  in  extreme  poverty  and  probably  are  unable  to  maintain 
themselves  in  a  state  of  industrial  efficiency  even  for  that  low- 
paid  and  unskilled  labor  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  Mr. 

324 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "WORKING  CLASS 'J      325 

H.  G.  Wells  and  other  observers  feel  that  this  class  is  likely  to 
put  even  more  obstacles  in  the  path  of  Socialism  than  the 
rich:  "Much  more  likely  to  obstruct  the  way  to  Socialism," 
says  Mr.  Wells,  "is  the  ignorance,  the  want  of  courage,  the 
stupid  want  of  imagination  in  the  very  poor,  too  shy  and 
timid  and  clumsy  to  face  any  change  they  can  evade !  But 
even  with  them  popular  education  is  doing  its  work ;  and  I 
do  not  fear  but  that  in  the  next  generation  we  will  find  Social- 
ists even  in  the  slums."  (1) 

"Misery  and  poverty  are  so  absolutely,  degrading,  and 
exercise  such  a  paralyzing  effect  over  the  nature  of  men,  that 
no  class  is  ever  really  conscious  of  its  own  suffering,"  says 
Oscar  Wilde.  "They  have  to  be  told  of  it  by  other  people, 
and  they  often  entirely  disbelieve  them.  What  is  said  by 
great  employers  of  labor  against  agitators  is  unquestionably 
true.  Agitators  are  a  set  of  interfering,  meddling  people, 
who  come  down  to  some  perfectly  contented  class  of  the  com- 
munity and  sow  the  seeds  of  discontent  amongst  them."  (2) 
It  is  the  "very  poor"  who  disbelieve  the  agitators.  They 
must  be  embraced  in  every  plan  of  social  reconstruction,  but 
they  cannot  be  of  much  aid.  The  least  skilled  must  rather 
be  helped  and  those  who  can  and  do  help  them  best  are  not 
any  of  their  "superiors,"  but  their  blood  brothers  and  sisters 
of  the  economic  class  just  above  them  —  the  great  mass,  of 
the  unskilled  workers. 

The  class  of  casual  workers  and  the  able-bodied  but  chroni- 
cally under-employed  play  a  very  serious  role  in  Socialist 
politics.  It  is  the  class  from  which,  as  Socialists  point  out, 
professional  soldiers,  professional  strike  breakers,  and,  to  some 
extent,  the  police  are  drawn.  Among  German  Socialists  it 
is  called  the  "lumpen  proletariat,"  and  both  for  the  present 
and  future  is  looked  at  with  the  greatest  anxiety.  It  is  not 
thought  possible  that  any  considerable  portion  of  it  will  be 
brought  into  the  Socialist  camp  in  the  near  future,  though 
some  progress  has  been  made,  as  with  every  other  element  of 
the  working  class.  It  is  acknowledged  that  it  tends  to  be- 
come more  numerous,  constantly  recruited  as  it  is  from  the 
increasing  class  of  servants  and  other  dependents  of  the  rich 
and  well-to-do. 

But  Socialists  understand  that  the  mercenary  hirelings 
drawn  from  this  class,  and  directly  employed  to  keep  them 
"in  order,"  are  less  dangerous  than  the  capitalists'  camp 
followers.  Bernard  Shaw  calls  this  second  army  of  depend- 


326  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

ents  "the  parasitic  proletariat."  But  he  explains  that  he 
means  not  that  they  do  not  earn  their  living,  but  that  their 
labor  is  unproductive.  They  are  parasitic  only  in  the  sense 
that  their  work  is  done  either  for  parasites  or  for  the  parasitical 
consumption  of  active  capitalists.  Nor  is  there  any  sharp 
line  between  proletarian  and  middle  class  in  this  element, 
since  parts  of  both  classes  are  equally  conscious  of  their  de- 
pendence. Shaw  makes  these  points  clear.  His  only  error 
is  to  suppose  that  Socialists  and  believers  in  the  class  war 
theory,  have  failed  to  recognize  them. 

"Thus  we  find,"  says  Shaw,  "that  what  the  idle  man  of  property 
does  is  to  plunge  into  mortal  sin  against  society.  He  not  only  with- 
draws himself  from  the  productive  forces  of  the  nation  and  quarters 
himself  on  them  as  a  parasite :  he  withdraws  also  a  body  of  property- 
less  men  and  places  them  in  the  same  position  except  that  they  have 
to  earn  this  anti  social  privilege  by  ministering  to  his  wants  and 
whims.  He  thus  creates  and  corrupts  a  class  of  workers  —  many  of 
them  very  highly  trained  and  skilled,  and  correspondingly  paid  — 
whose  subsistence  is  bound  up  with  his  income.  They  are  para- 
sites on  a  parasite;  and  they  defend  the  institution  of  private 
property  with  a  ferocity  which  startles  their  principal,  who  is  often  in 
a  speculative  way  quite  revolutionary  in  his  views.  They  knock 
the  class  war  theory  into  a  cocked  hat  [I  shall  show  below  that  class 
war  Socialists,  on  the  contrary,  have  always  recognized,  the  existence 
of  these  facts,  "whilst  the  present  system  lasts."  —  W.  E.  W.]  by 
forming  a  powerful  conservative  proletariat  whose  one  economic 
interest  is  that  the  rich  should  have  as  much  money  as  possible; 
and  it  is  they  who  encourage  and  often  compel  the  property  owners 
to  defend  themselves  against  an  onward  march  of  Socialism.  Thus 
we  have  the  phenomenon  that  seems  at  first  sight  so  amazing  in 
London:  namely,  that  in  the  constituencies  where  the  shop- 
keepers pay  the  most  monstrous  rents,  and  the  extravagance  and 
insolence  of  the  idle  rich  are  in  fullest  view,  no  Socialist  —  nay, 
no  Progressive  —  has  a  chance  of  being  elected  to  the  municipality 
or  to  Parliament.  The  reason  is  that  these  shopkeepers  live  by 
fleecing  the  rich  as  the  rich  live  by  fleecing  the  poor.  The  million- 
aire who  has  preyed  upon  Bury  and  Bottle  until  no  workman  there 
has  more  than  his  week's  sustenance  in  hand,  and  many  of  them  have 
not  even  that,  is  himself  preyed  upon  in  Bond  Street,  Pall  Mall, 
and  Longacre. 

"But  the  parasites,  the  West  End  tradesman,  the  West  End  pro- 
fessional man,  the  schoolmaster,  the  Ritz  hotel  keeper,  the  horse 
dealer  and  trainer,  the  impresario  and  his  guinea  stalls,  and  the 
ordinary  theatrical  manager  with  his  half -guinea  ones,  the  hunts- 
man, the  jockey,  the  gamekeeper,  the  gardener,  the  coachman,  the 
huge  mass  of  minor  shopkeepers  and  employees  who  depend  on  these 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "WORKING  CLASS '!      327 

or  who,  as  their  children,  have  been  brought  up  with  a  little  crust 
of  conservative  prejudices  which  they  call  their  politics  and  morals 
and  religion :  all  these  give  to  Parliamentary  and  social  conservatism 
its  real  fighting  force;  and  the  more  'class  conscious'  we  make 
them,  the  more  they  will  understand  that  their  incomes,  whilst  the 
present  system  lasts,  are  bound  up  with  those  of  the  proprietors 
whom  Socialism  would  expropriate.  And  as  many  of  them  are 
better  fed,  better  mannered,  better  educated,  more  confident  and 
successful  than  the  productive  proletariat,  the  class  war  is  not  going 
to  be  a  walkover  for  the  Socialists.  "  (3) 

If  we  take  into  account  both  this  "parasitic  proletariat" 
and  the  "lumpen  proletariat"  previously  referred  to,  it  is 
clear  that  when  the  Socialists  speak  of  a  class  struggle  against 
the  capitalists,  they  do  not  expect  to  be  able  to  include  in  their 
ranks  all  "the  people"  nor  even  all  the  wage  earners.  This 
is  precisely  one  of  the  things  that  distinguishes  them  most 
sharply  from  a  merely  populistic  movement.  Populist 
parties  expect  to  include  all  classes  of  the  "common  people," 
and  every  numerically  important  class  of  capitalists.  Social- 
ists understand  that  they  can  never  rely  on  the  small  capi- 
talist except  when  he  has  given  up  all  hope  of  maintaining 
himself  as  such,  and  that  they  are  facing  not  only  the  whole 
capitalist  class,  but  also  their  hirelings  and  dependents. 

Socialists  as  a  whole  have  never  tended  either  to  a  narrowly 
exclusive  nor  to  a  vaguely  inclusive  policy.  Nor  have  their 
most  influential  writers,  like  Marx  and  Liebknecht,  given  the 
wage  earners  a  privileged  position  in  the  movement.  I  have 
quoted  from  Liebknecht.  "Just  as  the  democrats  make  a 
sort  of  a  fetish  of  the  words  'the  people,'  "  wrote  Marx  to  the 
Communists  on  resigning  from  the  organization  in  1851,  "so 
you  may  make  one  of  the  word  'proletariat.'" 

But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  many  of  Marx's  followers  have 
ignored  this  warning,  and  the  worship  of  the  words  "prole- 
tariat" or  "working  class"  is  still  common  in  some  Socialist 
quarters.  Recently  Kautsky  wrote  that  the  Socialist  Party, 
besides  occupying  itself  with  the  interests  of  the  manual 
laborers,  "must  also  concern  itself  with  all  social  questions, 
but  that  its  attitude  on  these  questions  is  determined  by  the  in- 
terests of  the  manual  laborers." 

"The  Socialist  Party,"  he  continued,  "is  forced  by  its  class 
position  to  expand  its  struggle  against  its  own  exploitation 
and  oppression  into  a  struggle  against  all  forms  of  exploitation 
and  oppression,  to  broaden  its  struggle  for  class  interests  into 


328  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

a  struggle  for  liberty  and  justice  for  all  members  of  the  com- 
munity." According  to  this  interpretation,  the  Socialist 
Party,  starting  out  from  the  standpoint  of  the  economic 
interests  of  the  "manual  laborers,"  comes  to  represent  the 
interests  of  all  classes,  except  the  capitalists.  We  may  doubt 
as  to  whether  the  other  non-capitalist  classes  will  take  kindly 
to  this  subordination  or  "benevolent  assimilation"  by  the 
manual  workers.  Kautsky  seems  to  have  no  question  on  this 
matter,  however;  for  he  considers  that  the  abolition  of  the 
oppression  and  exploitation  of  the  wage  earners,  the  class 
at  the  bottom,  can  only  be  effected  by  the  abolition  of  all  ex- 
ploitation and  oppression,  and  that  therefore  "all  friends  of 
universal  liberty  and  justice,  whatever  class  they  may  spring 
from,  are  compelled  to  join  the  proletariat  and  to  fight  its 
class  struggles."  (4)  Even  if  this  is  true,  these  other  classes 
will  demand  that  they  should  have  an  equal  voice  in  carrying 
on  this  struggle  in  proportion  to  their  numbers,  and  Socialist 
parties  have  usually  (though  not  always)  given  them  that 
equal  voice. 

The  kernel  of  the  working  class,  "the  layers  of  the  industrial 
proletariat  which  have  reached  political  self-consciousness," 
provides  the  chief  supporters  of  the  Socialist  movement, 
according  to  Kautsky,  although  the  latter  is  the  representa- 
tive "not  alone  of  the  industrial  wage  workers,  but  of  all  the 
working  and  exploited  layers  of  the  community,  that  is,  the 
great  majority  of  the  total  population,  what  one  ordinarily 
calls  'the  people.'"  While  Socialism  is  to  represent  all  the 
producing  and  exploited  classes,  the  industrial  proletariat 
is  thus  considered  as  the  model  to  which  the  others  must  be 
shaped  and  as  by  some  special  right  or  virtue  it  is  on  all 
occasions  to  take  the  forefront  in  the  movement.  This  posi- 
tion leads  inevitably  to  a  considerably  qualified  form  of 
democracy. 

"The  backbone  of  the  party  will  always  be  the  fighting  prole- 
tariat, whose  qualities  will  determine  its  character,  whose  strength 
will  determine  its  power,"  says  Kautsky.  "Bourgeois  and  peasants 
are  highly  welcome  if  they  will  attach  themselves  to  us  and  march 
with  us,  but  the  proletariat  will  always  show  the  way. 

"But  if  not  only  wage  earners  but  also  small  peasants  and  small 
capitalists,  artisans,  middle-men  of  all  kinds,  small  officials,  and  so 
forth  —  in  short,  the  whole  so-called  '  common  people '  —  formed 
the  masses  out  of  which  Social  Democracy  recruits  its  adherents, 
we  must  not  forget  that  these  classes,  with  the  exception  of  the  class- 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "WORKING  CLASS':      329 

conscious  wage-earners,  are  also  a  recruiting  ground  for  our  oppo- 
nents ;  their  influence  on  these  classes  has  been  and  still  is  to-day  the 
chief  ground  of  their  political  power. 

"To  grant  political  rights  to  the  people,  therefore,  by  no  means 
necessarily  implies  the  protection  of  the  interests  of  the  proletariat 
or  those  of  social  evolution.  Universal  suffrage,  as  it  is  known,  has 
nowhere  brought  about  a  Social  Democratic  majority,  while  it  may 
give  more  reactionary  majorities  than  a  qualified  suffrage  under 
the  same  circumstances.  It  may  put  aside  a  liberal  government  only 
to  put  in  its  place  a  conservative  or  catholic  one.  .  .  . 

"Nevertheless  the  proletariat  must  demand  democratic  institu- 
tions under  all  circumstances,  for  the  same  reasons  that,  once  it  has 
obtained  political  power,  it  can  only  use  its  own  class  rule  for  the 
purpose  of  putting  an  end  to  all  class  rule.  It  is  the  bottommost 
of  the  social  classes.  It  cannot  gain  political  rights,  at  least  not 
in  its  entirety,  except  if  everybody  gets  them.  Each  of  the  other 
classes  may  become  privileged  under  certain  circumstances,  but  not 
the  proletariat.  The  Social  Democracy,  the  party  of  the  class- 
conscious  proletariat,  is  therefore  the  surest  support  of  democratic 
efforts,  much  surer  than  the  bourgeois  democracy. 

"But  if  the  Social  Democracy  is  also  the  most  strenuous  fighter 
for  democracy,  it  cannot  share  the  latter's  illusions.  It  must  always 
be  conscious  of  the  fact  that  every  popular  right  which  it  wins  is  a 
weapon  not  only  for  itself,  but  also  for  its  opponents ;  it  must  there- 
fore under  certain  circumstances  understand  that  democratic  achieve- 
ments are  more  useful  at  first  to  the  enemy  than  to  itself ;  but  only 
at  first.  For  in  the  long  run  the  introduction  of  democratic  institu- 
tions in  the  State  can  only  turn  out  to  the  profit  of  Social  Democracy. 
They  necessarily  make  its  struggle  easier,  and  lead  it  to  victory. 
The  militant  proletariat  has  so  much  confidence  in  social  evolution, 
so  much  confidence  in  itself,  that  it  fears  no  struggle,  not  even  with 
a  superior  power;  it  only  wants  a  field  of  battle  on  which  it  can 
move  freely.  The  democratic  State  offers  such  a  field  of  battle; 
there  the  final  decisive  struggle  between  bourgeoisie  and  proletariat 
can  best  be  fought  out." 

The  reader  might  understand  this  somewhat  vacillating 
position  on  the  whole  to  favor  democracy,  but  only  a  few 
pages  further  on  Kautsky  explains  his  reasons  for  opposing 
the  initiative  and  referendum,  and  we  see  that  when  the  point 
of  action  arrives,  his  democratic  idealism  is  abandoned :  — 

"In  our  opinion  it  follows  from  the  preceding  that  the  initiative 
and  referendum  do  not  belong  to  those  democratic  institutions  which 
must  be  furthered  by  the  proletariat  in  the  interest  of  its  own 
struggle  for  emancipation  everywhere  and  under  all  circumstances. 
The  referendum  and  initiative  are  institutions  which  may  be  very 
useful  under  certain  circumstances  if  one  does  not  overvalue  these 


330  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

uses,  but  under  other  circumstances  may  cause  great  harm.  The 
introduction  of  the  initiative  and  referendum  is,  therefore,  not  to 
be  striven  for  everywhere  and  under  all  circumstances,  but  only  in 
those  places  where  certain  conditions  are  fulfilled. 

"Among  these  conditions  precedent  we  reckon,  above  all,  the 
preponderance  of  the  city  population  over  that  of  the  country  — 
a  condition  which  at  the  present  moment  has  only  been  reached  in 
England.  A  further  condition  precedent  is  a  highly  developed 
political  party  life  which  has  taken  hold  of  the  great  masses  of  the 
population,  so  that  the  tendency  of  direct  legislation  to  break  up 
parties  and  to  bridge  over  party  opposition  are  no  more  to  be  feared. 

"But  the  weightiest  condition  precedent  is  the  lack  of  an  over- 
whelmingly centralized  governmental  power,  standing  indepen- 
dently against  the  people's  representatives."  (5)  (My  italics.) 

The  first  condition  mentioned  I  have  discussed  in  the  pre- 
vious chapter ;  the  second  indicates  that  Kautsky,  speaking 
for  many  German  Socialists,  for  the  present  at  least,  puts 
party  above  democracy. 

The  industrial  proletariat  is  supposed  to  have  the  mission 
of  saving  society.  Even  when  it  is  not  politically  "self- 
conscious,"  or  educated  to  see  the  great  role  it  must  play  in 
the  present  and  future  transformation  of  society,  it  is  supposed 
that  it  is  compelled  ultimately  "by  the  logic  of  events"  to  fill 
this  role  and  attempt  the  destruction  of  capitalism  and  the 
socialization  of  capital.  This  prediction  may  ultimately  prove 
true,  but  time  is  the  most  vital  element  in  any  calculation,  and 
Kautsky  himself  acknowledges  that  the  industrial  proletariat 
"had  existed  a  long  time  before  giving  any  indication  of  its 
independence,"  and  that  during  all  this  long  period  "no 
militant  proletariat  was  in  existence." 

The  chief  practical  reason  for  relying  so  strongly  on  the 
industrial  wage  earners  as  stated  by  Bebel  and  other  Socialists 
is  undoubtedly  that  "the  proletariat  increases  more  and  more 
until  it  forms  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  nation." 
No  doubt,  in  proportion  as  this  tendency  exists,  the  impor- 
tance of  gathering  certain  parts  of  the  middle  class  into  the 
movement  becomes  less  and  less,  and  the  statement  quoted, 
if  strongly  insisted  upon,  even  suggests  a  readiness  to  attempt 
to  get  along  entirely  without  these  elements.  The  figures 
of  the  Census  indicate  that  in  this  country,  at  least,  we  are 
some  time  from  the  point  when  the  proletariat  will  constitute 
even  a  bare  majority,  and  that  it  is  not  likely  to  form  an 
overwhelming  majority  for  decades  to  come.  But  the 
European  view  is  common  here  also. 


SOCIALISM  AND   THE   "WORKING  CLASS"      331 

The  moderate  Vandervelde  also  says  that  the  Socialist 
program  has  been  "formulated  by  or  for  the  workingmen  of 
large-scale  industry."  (6)  This  may  be  true,  but  we  are  not 
as  much  interested  to  know  who  formulated  the  program  of 
the  movement  as  to  understand  its  present  aim.  Its  aim, 
it  is  generally  agreed,  is  to  organize  into  a  single  movement 
all  anti-capitalistic  elements,  alj.  those  who  want  to  abolish 
capitalism,  those  exploited  classes  that  are  not  too  crushed 
to  revolt,  those  whose  chief  means  of  support  is  socially 
useful  labor  and  not  the  ownership  of  capital  or  possession 
of  some  privileged  position  or  office.  In  this  movement  it  is 
generally  conceded  by  Socialists  that  the  workingmen  of 
industry  play  the  central  part.  But  they  are  neither  its  sole 
origin  nor  is  their  welfare  its  sole  aim. 

The  best  known  of  the  Socialist  critics  of  Marxism,  Edward 
Bernstein,  shares  with  some  of  Marx's  most  loyal  disciples  in 
this  excessive  idealization  of  the  industrial  working  class.  In- 
deed, he  says,  with  more  truth  than  he  realizes,  that  in  propor- 
tion as  revolutionary  Marxism  is  relegated  to  the  background 
it  is  necessary  to  affirm  more  sharply  the  class  character  of  the 
Party.  That  is  to  say,  if  a  Socialist  Party  abandons  the 
principles  of  Socialism,  then  the  only  way  it  can  be  distin- 
guished from  other  movements  is  by  the  fact  that  it  embraces 
other  elements  of  the  population,  that  it  is  a  class  movement. 
But  Socialism  is  something  more  than  this,  it  is  a  class  move- 
ment of  a  certain  definite  character,  composed  of  classes  that 
are  naturally  selected  and  united,  owing  to  certain  definite 
characteristics. 

"The  social  democracy,"  says  Bernstein,  "can  become  the 
people's  party,  but  only  in  the  sense  that  the  workingmen 
form  the  essential  kernel  around  which  are  grouped  social 
elements  having  identical  interests.  ...  Of  all  the  social 
classes  opposed  to  the  capitalist  class,  the  working  class  alone 
represents  an  invincible  factor  of  social  progress,"  and  so- 
cial democracy  "addresses  itself  principally  to  the  workers." 
(My  italics.) 

Perhaps  the  most  orthodox  Socialist  organ  in  America, 
and  the  ablest  representative  in  this  country  of  the  inter- 
national aspects  of  the  movement  (the  New  Yorker  Volk- 
szeitung),  insists  that  "the  Socialist  movement  consists  in  the 
fusion  of  the  Socialist  doctrine  with  the  labor  movement  and 
in  nothing  else,"  and  says  that  students  and  even  doctors 
have  little  importance  for  the  Party.  The  less  orthodox  but 


332  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

more  revolutionary  Western  Clarion,  the  Socialist  organ  of 
British  Columbia,  where  the  Socialists  form  the  chief  opposi- 
tion party  in  the  legislature,  asserts  boldly,  "We  have  no 
leaning  towards  democracy;  all  we  want  is  a  short  supply 
of  working-class  autocracy." 

Some  of  the  ultra-revolutionists  have  gone  so  far  in  their 
hostility  to  all  social  classes  that  do  not  work  with  their  hands, 
that  they  have  completed  the  circle  and  flown  into  the  arms 
of  the  narrowest  and  least  progressive  of  trade  unionists  — 
the  very  element  against  which  they  had  first  reacted.  The 
Western  Socialist,  Thomas  Sladden,  throwing  into  one  single 
group  all  the  labor  organizations  from  the  most  revolutionary 
to  the  most  conservative,  such  as  the  railway  brotherhoods, 
says  that  all  "are  in  reality  part  of  the  great  Socialist  move- 
ment," and  claims  that  whenever  "labor"  goes  into  politics, 
this  also  is  a  step  towards  Socialism,  though  Socialist  prin- 
ciples are  totally  abandoned.  Mayor  McCarthy  of  San 
Francisco,  for  instance,  satisfied  his  requirements.  "Mc- 
Carthy declares  himself  a  friend  of  capital,"  says  Sladden, 
but,  he  asks  defiantly,  "Does  any  sane  capitalist  believe 
him  ?"  Here  we  see  one  of  the  most  revolutionary  agitators 
becoming  more  and  more  "radical"  until  he  has  completed 
the  circle  and  come  back,  not  only  to  "labor  right  or  wrong," 
but  even  to  "labor  working  in  harmony  with  capital." 

"  The  skilled  workingman,"  he  says,  "  is  not  a  proletarian. 
He  has  an  interest  to  conserve,  he  has  that  additional  skill 
for  which  he  receives  compensation  in  addition  to  his  ordi- 
nary labor  power." 

Mr.  Sladden  adds  that  the  real  proletarian  is  "uncultured 
and  uncouth  in  appearance,"  that  he  has  "no  manners  and 
little  education,"  and  that  his  religion  is  "the  religion  of 
hate."  Of  course  this  is  a  mere  caricature  of  the  attitude  of 
the  majority  of  Socialists. 

Some  of  the  partisans  of  revolutionary  unionism  in  this 
country  are  little  less  extreme.  The  late  Louis  Duchez, 
for  example,  reminds  us  that  Marx  spoke  of  the  proletariat 
as  "the  lowest  stratum  of  our  present  society,"  those  "who 
have  nothing  to  lose  but  their  chains,"  and  that  he  said  that 
"along  with  the  constantly  diminishing  number  of  the  mag- 
nates of  capital  who  usurp  and  monopolize  all  the  advantages 
of  this  process  of  transformation,  grows  the  mass  of  misery, 
oppression,  slavery,  degradation,  exploitation ;  but  with  this, 
too,  grows  the  revolt  of  the  working  class."  It  is  true  that 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE   "WORKING  CLASSY      333 

Marx  said  these  things  and  said  them  with  emphasis.  But 
he  did  not  wish  to  make  any  rigid  or  dogmatic  definition  of 
"the  proletariat"  and  much  that  he  has  said  pointed  to  an 
entirely  different  conception  than  would  be  gained  from  these 
quotations. 

In  speaking  of  "the  lowest  stratum  of  society"  Marx  was 
thinking,  not  of  a  community  divided  into  numerous  strata, 
but  chiefly  of  three  classes,  the  large  capitalists,  the  workers, 
and  the  middle  class.  It  was  the  lowest  of  these  three,  and 
not  the  lowest  of  their  many  subdivisions,  that  he  had  in 
mind.  From  the  first  the  whole  Socialist  movement  has 
recognized  the  almost  complete  hopelessness,  as  an  aid  to 
Socialism,  of  the  lowest  stratum  in  the  narrow  sense,  of  what 
is  called  the  "lumpen  proletariat,"  the  bulk  of  the  army  of 
beggars  and  toughs.  Mr.  Duchez  undoubtedly  would  have 
accepted  this  point,  for  he  wishes  to  say  that  the  Socialist 
movement  must  be  advanced  by  the  organization  of  unions 
not  among  this  class,  but  among  the  next  lowest,  economically 
speaking,  the  great  mass  of  unskilled  workers.  This  argument, 
also,  that  the  unskilled  have  a  better  strategic  position  than 
the  skilled  on  account  of  their  solidarity  and  unity  is  surely 
a  doubtful  one.  European  Socialists,  as  a  rule,  have  reached 
the  opposite  conclusion,  namely,  that  it  is  the  comparatively 
skilled  workers,  like  those  of  the  railways,  who  possess  the 
only  real  possibility  of  leading  in  a  general  strike  movement 
(see  Chapters  V  and  VI). 


CHAPTER  IV 
SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS 

ONE  of  the  grounds  on  which  it  is  proposed  by  some  Social- 
ists to  give  manual  labor  a  special  and  preferred  place  in  the 
movement  is  that  it  is  supposed  to  be  the  only  numerically 
important  non-capitalist  element  that  is  at  all  well  organized 
or  even  organizable.  Let  us  see,  then,  to  what  degree  labor 
is  organized  and  what  are  the  characteristics  of  this  organi- 
zation. 

First,  the  labor  unions  represent  manual  wage  earners 
almost  exclusively  —  not  by  intention,  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact.  They  include  only  an  infinitesimal  proportion  of  small 
employers,  self-employing  artisans,  or  salaried  employees. 

Second,  the  unions  by  no  means  include  all  the  manual 
wage  earners,  and  only  in  a  few  industries  do  they  include  a 
majority.  Those  organized  are,  as  a  rule,  the  more  developed 
and  prosperous,  the  skilled  or  comparatively  skilled  workers. 

Third,  their  method  of  action  is  primarily  that  of  the  strike 
and  boycott  —  economic  and  not  political.  They  demand 
certain  legislation  and  in  several  cases  have  put  political 
parties  in  the  field ;  they  exert  a  political  pressure  in  favor  of 
government  employees.  But  their  chief  purpose,  even  when 
they  do  these  things,  is  to  develop  an  organization  that  can 
strike  and  boycott  effectively ;  and  to  secure  only  such  politi- 
cal and  civil  rights  as  are  needed  for  this  purpose. 

The  unions  are  primarily  economic,  and  the  Socialist  Party 
is  primarily  political  —  both,  to  have  any  national  power, 
must  embrace  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  same  industrial 
wage-earning  class.  It  is  evident  that  conflict  between  the 
two  organizations  is  unnecessary  and  we  find,  indeed,  that  it 
arises  only  in  exceptional  cases.  Many  Socialists,  however, 
look  upon  the  unions  primarily  as  an  economic  means,  more 
or  less  important,  of  advancing  political  Socialism  —  while 
many  unionists  regard  the  Socialist  parties  primarily  as  po- 
litical instruments  for  furthering  the  economic  action  of  the 
unions. 

334 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  335 

There  are  several  groups  of  Socialists,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  ascribe  to  the  economic  action  of  the  unions  a  part  in 
attaining  Socialism  as  important  or  more  important  than  that 
they  ascribe  to  the  political  action  of  the  party.  These  in- 
clude, first,  all  those  for  whom  Socialism  is  to  be  brought  about 
almost  exclusively  by  wage  earners,  whether  by  political  or 
by  economic  action;  second,  those  who  do  not  believe  the 
capitalists  will  allow  the  ballot  to  be  used  for  anti-capitalistic 
purposes ;  third,  those  who  believe  that,  in  spite  of  all  that 
capitalists  and  capitalistic  governments  can  do,  strikes  and 
boycotts  cannot  be  circumvented  and  in;the  end  are  irresistible. 

Other  Socialists,  agreeing  that  economic  action,  and  there- 
fore labor  unions,  both  of  the  existing  kind  and  of  that  more 
revolutionary  type  now  in  the  process  of  formation,  are  indis- 
pensable, still  look  upon  the  Socialist  Party  as  the  chief  in- 
strument of  Socialism.  As  these  include  nearly  all  Party  mem- 
bers who  are  not  unionists  as  well  as  a  considerable  part  of  the 
unionists,  they  are  perhaps  a  majority  —  internationally. 

As  the  correct  relationship  between  Party  and  unions,  Mr. 
Debs  has  indorsed  the  opinion  of  Professor  Herron,  who,  he 
said,  "sees  the  trend  of  development  and  arrives  at  conclu- 
sions that  are  sound  and  commend  themselves  to  the  thought- 
ful consideration  of  all  trade  unionists  and  Socialists." 
Professor  Herron  says  that  the  Socialist  is  needed  to  educate 
the  unionists  to  see  their  wider  interests :  — 

"He  is  not  to  do  this  by  seeking  to  commit  trade-union  bodies 
to  the  principles  of  Socialism.  Resolutions  or  commitments  of  this 
sort  accomplish  little  good.  Nor  is  he  to  do  it  by  taking  a  servile 
attitude  towards  organized  labor  nor  by  meddling  with  the  details 
or  the  machinery  of  the  trade  unions.  It  is  better  to  leave  the  trade 
unions  to  their  distinctive  work,  as  the  workers'  defense  against  the 
encroachments  of  capitalism,  as  the  economic  development  of  the 
worker  against  the  economic  development  of  the  capitalist,  giving 
unqualified  support  and  sympathy  to  the  struggles  of  the  organized 
worker  to  sustain  himself  in  his  economic  sphere.  But  let  the  So- 
cialist also  build  up  the  character  and  harmony  and  strength  of  the 
Socialist  movement  as  a  political  force,  that  it  shall  command  the 
respect  and  confidence  of  the  worker,  irrespective  of  his  trade  or  his 
union  obligations.  It  is  urgent  that  we  so  keep  in  mind  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  developments  that  neither  shall  cripple  the 
other."  (1) 

Here  is  a  statement  of  the  relation  of  the  two  movements 
that  corresponds  closely  to  the  most  mature  and  widespread 


336  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Socialist  opinion  and  to  the  decisions  of  the  International 
Socialist  Congresses. 

This  view  also  meets  that  of  the  unions  in  most  countries. 
The  President  of  the  American  Federation,  Mr.  Gompers, 
understands  this  thoroughly  and  quotes  with  approval  the 
action  taken  recently  by  the  labor  unions  in  Sweden,  Hungary, 
and  Italy,  which  demand  the  enforcement  of  this  policy  of 
absolute  ' '  neutrality. ' '  Formerly  the  federation  of  the  unions 
of  Sweden,  for  example,  agreed  to  use  their  efforts  to  have 
the  local  unions  become  a  part  of  the  local  organization  of  the 
Social  Democratic  Party.  These  words  providing  for  this 
policy  were  struck  out  of  the  constitution  by  the  Convention 
of  1909,  which  at  the  same  time  adopted  (by  a  considerable 
majority)  a  resolution  that  "by  this  decision  it  was  not  in- 
tended to  break  up  the  unity  and  solidarity  of  labor's  forces, 
for  the  convention  considers  the  Social  Democratic  Party  as 
the  natural  expression  of  the  political  ambitions  of  the 
Swedish  workers."  A  similar  relation  prevails  in  nearly 
every  country  of  the  Continent. 

The  Secretary  of  the  German  Federation  (who  is  its  highest 
officer)  — a  man  who  is  at  the  same  time  an  active  Socialist,  — 
has  defined  accurately  the  relation  between  the  two  organi- 
zations in  that  country.  He  says  that  the  unions  cannot 
accomplish  their  purposes  without  securing  political  repre- 
sentation "  through  a  Party  that  is  active  in  legislative  bodies." 
This  is  also  the  view  now  of  the  British  unions,  which  in  over- 
whelming majority  support  the  Labor  Party.  And  they  do 
this  for  the  same  purposes  mentioned  by  Legien :  to  protect 
the  working  people  from  excessive  exploitation,  to  enact  into 
law  the  advantages  already  won  by  the  unions,  and  so  to 
smooth  the  way  for  better  labor  conditions.  Similarly,  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  secures  representation  on 
legislative  bodies,  and  hesitates  to  form  a  national  Labor 
Party,  not  on  principle,  but  only  because  American  conditions 
do  not  in  most  localities  promise  that  it  would  be  effective. 

Mr.  Mitchell  expresses  the  position  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion when  he  says  that  the  "wage  earners  should  in  proportion 
to  their  strength  secure  the  nomination  and  the  election  of  a 
number  of  representatives  to  the  governing  bodies  of  city, 
State,  and  nation,"  but  that  "a  third  Labor  Party  is  not  for 
the  present  desirable,  because  it  would  not  obtain  a  majority 
and  could  not  therefore  force  its  will  upon  the  community  at 
large."  (2)  The  European  Socialists  would  perhaps  not 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  337 

understand  the  political  principle  of  our  governmental  system, 
which  requires  a  plurality  in  the  State  or  nation  in  order 
to  obtain  immediate  results.  For  in  this  country  the  more 
important  branches  of  the  government  are  the  executive  and 
judges,  and  these,  unlike  the  legislatures,  cannot  as  a  rule 
be  divided,  and  therefore  give  no  opportunity  for  the  repre- 
sentation of  minorities,  and  are  necessarily  elected  by  State  or 
national  pluralities  and  usually  by  majorities.  In  the  monar- 
chical countries  of  the  Continent  either  such  officials  are  not 
elected,  or  their  powers  are  circumscribed,  and  even  England 
lies  in  this  respect  halfway  between  those  countries  and  the 
United  States.  What  Mr.  Mitchell  says  is  in  so  far  true; 
it  would  certainly  require  a  large  number  of  elections  before 
a  party  beginning  on  the  basis  of  a  minority  of  representatives 
in  Congress  or  the  legislatures  could  win  enough  control  over 
the  executive  and  judges  to  "force  its  will  upon  the  commu- 
nity at  large."  Mr.  Mitchell  and  the  other  leaders  of  the 
Federation  are,  it  is  seen,  unwilling  to  undertake  a  campaign 
so  long  and  arduous,  and,  since  they  have  no  means  of  at- 
tracting the  votes  of  any  but  wage-earning  voters,  so  doubtful 
as  to  its  outcome. 

Mr.  Mitchell  says  that  the  workingmen  in  a  separate  party 
could  not  even  secure  a  respectable  minority  of  the  legislators.  The 
numerical  strength  of  the  Unions  in  proportion  to  the  voting  popu- 
lation is  scarcely  greater  than  it  was  when  he  wrote  (1903),  and  what 
he  said  then  holds  true  as  ever  to-day. 

Mr.  Gompers  has  also  stated  that  labor  would  not  be  able  to 
secure  more  than  twenty-five  or  fifty  Congressmen  by  independent 
political  action.  This  is  undoubtedly  true,  and  we  may  take  it  for 
granted,  therefore,  that,  unless  the  unions  most  unexpectedly  in- 
crease their  strength,  there  will  be  no  national  or  even  State-wide 
Trade  Union  or  Labor  Party  in  this  country,  though  the  San  Fran- 
cisco example  of  a  city  Labor  party  may  be  repeated  now  and  then, 
and  State  organizations  of  the  Socialist  Party,  which  enjoy  a  large 
measure  of  autonomy,  may  occasionally,  without  changing  their 
present  names,  reduce  themselves  to  mere  trade-union  parties  in  the 
narrow  sense  of  the  term.  President  Gompers  has  claimed  that  80 
per  cent  of  the  voting  members  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  followed  his  advice  in  the  election  of  1908,  which  was,  in 
nearly  every  case,  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket.  There  were  not 
over  2,000,000  members  of  the  Federation  at  this  time,  and  of  these 
(allowing  for  women,  minors,  and  non-voting  foreigners)  there  were 
not  more  than  1,500,000  voters.  About  60  per  cent  of  this  number 
have  always  voted  Democratic,  so  that  if  Mr.  Gompers's  claim  were 
z 


338  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

conceded  it  would  mean  a  change  of  no  more  than  300,000  votes. 
It  is  true  that  such  a  number  of  voters  could  effect  the  election  or 
defeat  of  a  great  many  Democrats  or  Republican  Congressmen,  but, 
as  Mr.  Gompers  says,  it  could  only  elect  a  score  or  two  of  Inde- 
pendents, a  number  which,  as  the  example  of  Populism  has  shown, 
would  be  impotent  under  our  political  system.  Moreover,  as  such 
a  Congressional  group  would  be  situated  politically  not  in  the 
middle,  but  at  one  of  the  extremes,  it  could  never  hold  the  balance 
of  power  in  this  or  any  other  country  until  it  became  a  majority. 

Mr.  Mitchell  is  careful  to  qualify  his  opposition  to  the  third 
party  (or  Labor  Party)  idea.  He  writes:  "I  wish  it  to  be 
understood  that  this  refers  only  to  the  immediate  policy  of 
the  unions.  One  cannot  see  what  the  future  of  the  dominant 
parties  in  the  United  States  will  be,  and  should  it  come  to 
pass  that  the  two  great  American  political  parties  oppose  labor 
legislation,  as  they  now  favor  it,  it  would  be  the  imperative 
duty  of  unionists  to  form  a  third  party  in  order  to  secure 
some  measure  of  reform."  (2)  Certainly  both  parties  are 
becoming  more  and  more  willing  to  grant  "some  measure" 
of  labor  reform,  so  that  Mr.  Mitchell  is  unlikely  to  change 
his  present  position. 

Whether  the  unions  form  a  separate  party  or  not,  is  to  them 
a  matter  not  of  principle,  but  of  ways  and  means,  of  time  and 
place.  Where  they  are  very  weak  politically  they  seek  only  to 
have  their  representatives  in  other  parties;  where  they  are 
stronger  they  may  form  a  party  of  their  own  to  cooperate 
with  the  other  parties  and  secure  a  share  in  government; 
where  they  are  strongest  they  will  seek  to  gain  control  over 
a  party  that  plays  for  higher  stakes,  brings  to  the  unions  the 
support  of  other  elements,  and  remains  in  opposition  until 
it  can  secure  undivided  control  over  government,  e.g.  the 
Socialist  Party.  Whether  the  unions  operate  through  all 
parties  or  a  Labor  Party  or  a  Socialist  Party,  is  of  secondary 
importance  also  to  Socialists ;  what  is  of  consequence  is  the 
character  of  the  unions,  and  the  effect  of  their  political  policy 
on  the  unions  themselves.  In  all  three  cases  the  principles 
of  the  unions  may  be  at  bottom  the  same,  and  in  any  of  the 
three  cases  they  may  be  ready  to  use  the  Socialist  Party  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  securing  a  modest  improvement  of  their 
wages  —  even  obstructing  other  Party  activities  —  as  some 
of  the  German  union  leaders  have  done.  They  may  also  use 
a  Labor  Party  for  the  same  purpose  —  as  in  Great  Britain. 
Or  they  may  develop  a  political  program  without  really 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  339 

favoring  any  political  party  or  having  any  distinctive  polit- 
ical aim  —  as  in  the  United  States. 

The  -labor  unions,  even  the  most  conservative,  have  always 
and  everywhere  had  some  kind  of  a  political  program.  They 
have  naturally  favored  the  right  to  organize,  to  strike  and 
boycott,  free  speech  and  a  free  press.  They  have  demanded 
universal  suffrage,  democratic  constitutions,  and  other  meas- 
ures to  increase  the  political  power  of  their  members.  They 
have  favored  all  economic  reform  policies  of  which  working 
people  got  a  share,  even  if  a  disproportionately  small  one,  and 
all  forms  of  taxation  that  lightened  their  burdens.  (a>  And, 
finally,  they  have  usually  centered  their  attacks  on  the  most 
powerful  of  their  enemies,  whether  Emperor,  Church,  army, 
landlords,  or -large  capitalists. 

In  economic  and  political  reform,  the  American  unions, 
like  those  of  other  countries,  support  all  progressive  measures, 
including  the  whole  "State  Socialist"  program.  As  to  polit- 
ical machinery,  they  favor,  of  course,  every  proposal  that  can 
remove  constitutional  checks  and  give  the  majority  control 
over  the  government,  such  as  the  easy  amendment  of  con- 
stitutions and  the  right  to  recall  judges  and  all  other  officials 
by  majority  vote.  Like  the  Socialists,  they  welcome  the 
"State  Socialist"  labor  program,  government  insurance  for 

(a)  Miss  Hughan  in  her  "American  Socialism,"  p.  220,'quotes  an  expression 
of  mine  (see  the  New  York  Call,  March  22,  1910)  in  which  I  said  that  "petty 
reforms  never  have  aroused  and  never  will  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
working  class  and  do  not  permit  of  its  cooperation,  but  leave  everything  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  self-appointed  leaders." 

Miss  Hughan  herself  points  out  that  I  have  never  considered  all  so-called 
reforms  as  petty  (see  "American  Socialism  of  the  Present  Day,"  p.  216)  and 
quotes  (on  p.  199)  an  expression  from  the  very  article  above  mentioned 
in  which  I  define  what  reforms  I  consider  are  of  special  importance  to  the 
wage  earners,  namely,  those  protecting  the  strike,  the  boycott,  free  speech, 
and  civil  government.  I  even  mentioned  labor  legislation  on  a  national 
scale.  The  petty  reforms  I  referred  to  were  State  labor  laws.  These  will 
not  only  be  carried  out  by  non-Socialists,  but  receive  very  little  attention  from 
active  labor  bodies  such  as  the  city  and  State  federations,  which  are  almost 
wholly  absorbed  in  the  greater  and  more  difficult  task^of  defending  the  strike, 
boycott,  free  speech,  and  sometimes  civil  government.  Labor  will  do  every- 
thing in  its  power  to  promote  child  labor  laws,  workingmen's  compensation 
etc.,  except  to  give  them  its  chief  attention  instead  of  the  struggle  for  higher 
wages  and  the  rights  needed  to  carry  it  on  effectively.  As  a  consequence 
these  matters  are  left  to  a  few  selfish  or  unselfish  persons,  who  are  "self- 
appointed  leaders,"  even  when  the  unions  consent  to  leave  these  particular 
matters  in  their  hands.  For  active  cooperation  of  the  masses  in  the  legal, 
economic,  and  political  intricacies  of  such  legislation  is  not  only  undesirable, 
but  impossible  under  the  present  system  of  society  and  government.  Labor 
must  govern  itself  through  instructed  delegates,  while  such  work  can  be  done 
only  by  representatives,  who  must  often  have  the  power  to  act  without  further 
consultation  with  those  who  elected  them. 


340  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

workingmen  against  old  age,  sickness,  accidents,  and  un- 
employment, a  legal  eight-hour  day,  a  legal  minimum  wage, 
industrial  education,  the  prohibition  of  child  labor,  etc. 

The  unions  and  the  parties  they  use  also  join  in  the  effort 
of  the  small  capitalist  investors  and  borrowers,  consumers  and 
producers,  to  control  the  large  interests  —  the  central  feature 
of  the  "State  Socialist"  policy.  But  the  conservative  unions 
do  not  stop  with  such  progressive,  if  non-Socialist,  measures ; 
they  take  up  the  cause  of  the  smaller  capitalists  also  as  com- 
petitors. The  recent  attack  of  the  Federation  of  Labor  on  the 
"Steel  Trust"  is  an  example.  The  presidents  of  the  majority 
of  the  more  important  unions,  who  signed  this  document,  be- 
came the  partisans  not  only  of  small  capitalists  who  buy  from 
the  trust,  sell  to  it,  or  invest  in  its  securities,  but  also  of  the 
unsuccessful  competitors  that  these  combinations  are  eliminat- 
ing. The  Federation  here  spoke  of  "the  American  institution 
of  unrestricted  production,"  which  can  mean  nothing  less  than 
unrestricted  competition,  and  condemned  the  "Steel  Trust" 
because  it  controls  production,  whereas  the  regulation  or 
control  of  production  is  precisely  the  most  essential  thing  to 
be  desired  in  a  progressive  industrial  society  —  a  control,  of 
course,  to  be  turned  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  benefit  of  all 
the  people. 

The  Federation's  attack  was  not  only  economically  re- 
actionary, but  it  was  practically  disloyal  to  millions  of  em- 
ployees. It  applies  against  the  "trust,"  which  happens  to 
be  unpopular,  arguments  which  apply  even  more  strongly  to 
competitive  business.  The  trust,  it  said,  corrupts  legislative 
bodies  and  is  responsible  for  the  high  tariff.  As  if  all  these 
practices  had  not  begun  before  the  "trusts"  came  into  being, 
as  if  the  associated  manufacturers  are  not  even  more  strenu- 
ous advocates  of  all  the  tariffs  —  which  are  life  and  death 
matters  to  them  —  than  the  "trusts,"  which  might  very  well 
get  along  without  them.  Finally,  the  Federation  accuses  the 
"Steel  Trust"  of  an  especially  oppressive  policy  towards  its 
working  people,  apparently  forgetting  its  arch  enemy,  the 
manufacturer's  association.  It  is  notorious,  moreover,  that 
the  smallest  employers,  such  as  the  owners  of  sweat  shops, 
nearly  always  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy  and  sometimes  on 
the  verge  of  starvation  themselves,  are  harder  on  their  labor 
than  the  industrial  combinations,  and  that  in  competitive 
establishments,  like  textile  mills,  the  periods  when  employers 
are  forced  to  close  down  altogether  are  far  more  frequent, 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  341 

making  the  average  wages  the  year  round  far  below  those 
paid  by  any  of  the  trusts.  The  merest  glance  at  the  statistics 
of  the  United  States  census  will  be  sufficient  evidence  to  prove 
this.  For  not  only  are  weekly  wages  lower  in  the  textile  mills 
and  several  other  industries  than  they  are  in  the  steel  corpora- 
tion, but  also  employment  year  in  and  year  out  is  much  more 
irregular.  Here  we  see  the  unions  adopting  the  politics  of 
the  small  capitalists,  not  only  on  its  constructive  or  "State 
Socialist"  side,  but  also  in  its  reactionary  tendency,  now  being 
rapidly  outgrown,  of  trying  to  restore  competition,  and  actually 
working  against  their  own  best  interests  for  this  purpose. 

A  writer  in  the  Federationist  demands  "a  reduction  of  railway 
charges,  express  rates,  telegraph  rates,  telephone  rates,"  and  a 
radical  change  in  the  great  industrial  corporations  such  as  the  Steel 
Trust,  which  is  to  be  subjected  to  thorough  regulation.  Swollen 
fortunes  are  to  be  broken  up,  together  with  the  power  of  the  monop- 
olists, of  "the  gamblers  in  the  necessities  of  life,  etc."  (3)  In  this 
writer's  opinion  (Mr.  Shibley),  the  monopolists  are  the  chief  cause 
of  high  prices  and  the  only  important  anti-social  group,  and  all  the 
other  classes  of  society  have  a  common  interest  with  the  wage 
earners.  But  business  interests,  manufacturers,  the  owners  of  large 
farms,  and  employers  in  lines  where  competition  still  prevails,  would 
also,  with  the  fewest  exceptions,  take  sides  against  the  working 
people  in  any  great  labor  conflict  —  as  the  history  of  every  modern 
country  for  the  past  fifty  years  has  shown.  It  is  not  "Big  Business " 
or  "The  Interests,"  but  business  in  general,  not  monopolistic  em- 
ployers, but  the  whole  employing  class,  against  which  the  unions  have 
contended  and  always  must  contend  —  on  the  economic  as  well  as 
the  political  field.  Mr.  Gompers  and  his  associates,  like  Mr.  Bryan 
and  Senator  La  Follette,  demand  that  the  people  shall  rule,  but  they 
all  depend  upon  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  business  men  as  allies, 
who,  if  opposed  to  government  by  monopolies,  are  still  more  opposed 
to  government  by  their  employees  or  by  the  consumers  of  their 
products,  and  are  certain  to  fight  any  political  movement  of  which 
they  are  a  predominating  part. 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor,  and  the  majority  of 
the  labor  unions  comprising  it,  are  thus  seen  to  have  a  political 
program  scarcely  distinguishable  from  that  of  the  radical 
wing  of  either  of  the  large  parties,  —  for  it  seeks  little  if  any 
more  than  to  join  in  with  the  general  movement  against  mo- 
nopolists and  large  capitalists  in  a  conflict  that  can  never  be 
won  or  lost,  since  the  leaders  in  the  movement  are  themselves 
indirectly  and  at  the  bottom  a  part  of  the  capitalist  class. 

The  President  of  the  American  Federation  views  this  partly 


342  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

reactionary  and  partly  "State  Socialist"  program  as  being 
directed  against  " capitalism."  "The  votes  of  courageous 
and  honest  citizens  in  all  civilized  lands,"  says  Mr.  Gompers, 
"are  cutting  away  the  capitalistic  powers'  privilege  to  lay 
tribute  on  the  producers.  Capitalism,  as  a  surviving  form 
of  feudalism,  —  the  power  to  deprive  the  laborer  of  his  prod- 
uct, —  gives  signs  of  expiring."  (4)  Democratic  reform 
and  improvement  in  economic  conditions  are  apparently 
taken  by  Mr.  Gompers  as  a  sign  that  capitalism  is  expiring 
and  that  society  is  progressing  satisfactorily  to  the  wage 
earners.  Although  the  constitution  of  the  Federation  says 
that  the  world-wide  "struggle  between  the  capitalist  and  the 
laborer"  is  a  struggle  between  "oppressors  and  oppressed," 
Mr.  Gompers  gives  the  outside  world  to  understand  that  the 
unions  have  no  inevitable  struggle  before  them,  but  are  as 
interested  in  industrial  peace  as  are  the  employers.  He  has 
expressed  his  interpretation  of  the  purpose  of  the  Federation 
in  the  single  word  "more."  He  sees  progress  and  asks  a  share 
for  the  unionists  as  each  forward  step  is  taken.  He  does  not 
ask  that  labor's  share  be  increased  in  proportion  to  the  prog- 
ress made  —  to  say  nothing  of  asking  that  this  share  should 
be  made  disproportionately  large  in  order  gradually  to  make 
the  distribution  of  income  more  equal.  A  capitalism  in- 
spired by  a  more  enlightened  selfishness  might,  without  any 
ultimate  loss,  grant  all  the  Federation's  present  demands, 
political  as  well  as  economic.  Therefore,  Mr.  Gompers,  quite 
logically,  does  not  see  any  necessity  for  an  aggressive  attitude. 

"Labor  unions,"  says  Mr.  John  Mitchell,  who  takes  a 
similar  view,  "are  for  workmen,  but  against  no  one.  They 
are  not  hostile  to  employers,  not  inimical  to  the  interests 
of  the  general  public.  They  are  for  a  class,  because  that 
class  exists  and  has  class  interests,  but  the  unions  did  not 
create  and  do  not  perpetuate  the  class  or  its  interests  and 
do  not  seek  to  evoke  a  class  conflict."  (5)  Here  it  is  recog- 
nized that  the  working  class  exists  as  a  class  and  has  in- 
terests of  its  own.  But,  if,  as  Mr.  Mitchell  adds,  the 
unions  do  not  wish  to  perpetuate  this  class  or  its  interests, 
then  surely  they  must  see  to  it,  as  far  as  they  are  able,  that 
members  of  this  class  have  equal  industrial  opportunities 
with  other  citizens,  and  that  its  children  should  at  least  be 
no  longer  compelled  to  remain  members  of  a  class  from  which, 
as  he  expressly  acknowledges,  there  is  at  present  no  escape. 

Both  Mr.  Gompers  and  Mr.  Mitchell  have  gone  to  the 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  343 

defense  of  the  leading  anti-Socialist  organization  in  this 
country,  Civic  Federation  —  and  nothing  could  draw  in 
stronger  colors  than  do  their  arguments  the  complete  con- 
flict of  the  Gompers-Mitchell  labor  union  policy  to  that  of  the 
Socialists.  Mr.  Gompers  defends  the  Federation  as  worthy 
of  labor's  respect  on  the  ground  that  many  of  its  most  active 
capitalist  members  have  shown  a  sustained  sincerity,  "always 
having  in  mind  the  rights  and  interests  of  labor,"  which  is 
the  very  antithesis  to  the  Socialist  claim  that  nobody  will 
always  have  in  mind  the  rights  and  the  interests  of  labor,  ex- 
cept the  laborers  —  and  least  of  all  those  who  buy  labor  them- 
selves, or  are  intimately  associated  with  those  who  buy  labor. 

Mr.  Mitchell  says  that  through  the  Civic  Federation  many 
employers  have  become  convinced  that  their  antagonism 
to  unions  was  based  on  prejudice,  and  have  withdrawn  their 
opposition  to  the  organization  of  the  men  in  their  plants. 
No  doubt  this  is  strictly  true.  It  shows  that  the  unions  had 
been  presented  to  the  employers  as  being  profitable  to  them. 
This,  Socialists  would  readily  admit,  might  be  the  case  with 
some  labor  organizations  as  they  have  been  shaped  by  leaders 
like  Mr.  Mitchell  and  conferences  like  those  of  the  Civic 
Federation.  To  Socialists  organizations  that  create  this 
impression  of  harmony  of  interests  do  exactly  what  is  most 
dangerous  for  the  workers  —  that  is,  they  make  them  less 
conscious  and  assertive  of  their  own  interests. 

The  Civic  Federation,  composed  in  large  part  of  prominent 
capitalists  and  conservatives,  endeavors  to  allay  the  discon- 
tent of  labor  by  intimate  association  with  the  officers  of  the 
unions.  Socialists  have  long  recognized  the  tendency  of 
trade-union  leaders  to  be  persuaded  by  such  methods  to 
the  capitalist  view.  Eight  years  ago  at  Dresden,  August 
Bebel  had  already  seen  this  danger,  for.  he  placed  in  the  same 
class  with  the  academic  "revisionists"  those  former  prole- 
tarians who  had  been  raised  into  higher  positions  and  were 
lost  to  the  working  classes  through  "intercourse  with  people 
of  the  contrary  tendency."  It  is  this  class  of  leaders,  accord- 
ing to  the  Socialists,  which,  up  to  the  present,  has  dominated 
the  trade  unions  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  and 
occasionally  of  other  countries. 

No  Socialist  has  been  more  persistent  in  directing  working- 
class  opinion  against  all  such  "leaders"  than  Mr.  Debs,  who 
does  not  mince  matters  in  this  direction.  "The  American 
Federation  of  Labor,"  he  writes,  "has  numbers,  but  the 


344  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

capitalist  class  do  not  fear  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  ; 
quite  the  contrary.  There  is  something  wrong  with  that 
form  of  unionism  whose  leaders  are  the  lieutenants  of  capital- 
ism; something  is  wrong  with  that  form  of  unionism  that 
forms  an  alliance  with  such  a  capitalist  combination  as  the 
Civic  Federation,  whose  sole  purpose  is  to  chloroform  the 
working  class  while  the  capitalist  class  go  through  their 
pockets.  .  .  .  The  old  form  of  trade  unionism  no  longer 
meets  the  demands  of  the  working  class.  The  old  trade 
union  has  not  only  fulfilled  its  mission  and  outlived  its  use- 
fulness, but  is  now  positively  reactionary,  and  is  maintained, 
not  in  the  interest  of  the  workers  who  support  it,  but  in  the 
interest  of  the  capitalist  class  who  exploit  the  workers  who 
support  it." 

In  a  recent  speech  Mr.  Debs  related  at  length  the  Socialist 
view  as  to  how,  in  his  opinion,  this  misleading  of  labor 
leaders  comes  about :  — 

"There  is  an  army  of  men  who  serve  as  officers,  who  are  on  the 
salary  list,  who  make  a  good  living,  keeping  the  working  class 
divided.  They  start  out  with  good  intentions  as  a  rule.  They 
really  want  to  do  something  to  serve  their  fellows.  They  are  elected 
officers  of  a  labor  organization,  and  they  change  their  clothes.  They 
now  wear  a  white  shirt  and  a  standing  collar.  They  change  their 
habits  and  their  methods.  They  have  been  used  to  cheap  clothes, 
coarse  fare,  and  to  associating  with  their  fellow  workers.  After 
they  have  been  elevated  to  official  position,  as  if  by  magic  they  are 
recognized  by  those  who  previously  scorned  them  and  held  them  in 
contempt.  They  find  that  some  of  the  doors  that  were  previously 
barred  against  them  now  swing  inward,  and  they  can  actually  put 
their  feet  under  the  mahogany  of  the  capitalist. 

"Our  common  labor  man  is  now  a  labor  leader.  The  great 
capitalist  pats  him  on  the  back  and  tells  him  that  he  knew  long  ago 
that  he  was  a  coming  man,  that  it  was  a  fortunate  thing  for  the 
workers  of  the  world  that  he  had  been  born,  that  in  fact  they  had 
long  been  waiting  for  just  such  a  wise  and  conservative  leader. 
And  this  has  a  certain  effect  upon  our  new-made  leader,  and  uncon- 
sciously, perhaps,  he  begins  to  change  —  just  as  John  Mitchell  did 
when  Mark  Hanna  patted  him  on  the  shoulder  and  said,  'John,  it 
is  a  good  thing  that  you  are  at  the  head  of  the  miners.  You  are  the 
very  man.  You  have  the  greatest  opportunity  a  labor  leader  ever 
had  on  this  earth.  You  can  immortalize  yourself.  Now  is  your 
time.'  Then  John  Mitchell  admitted  that  this  capitalist,  who  had 
been  pictured  to  him  as  a  monster,  was  not  half  as  bad  as  he  had 
thought  he  was ;  that,  in  fact,  he  was  a  genial  and  companionable 
gentleman.  He  repeats  his  visit  the  next  day,  or  the  next  week, 


SOCIALISM  AND   THE   LABOR  UNIONS  345 

and  is  introduced  to  some  other  distinguished  person  he  had  read 
about,  but  never  dreamed  of  meeting,  and  thus  goes  on  the  trans- 
formation. All  his  dislikes  disappear,  and  all  feeling  of  antagonism 
vanishes.  He  concludes  that  they  are  really  most  excellent  people, 
and,  now  that  he  has  seen  and  knows  them,  he  agrees  with  them 
there  is  no  necessary  conflict  between  workers  and  capitalists. 
And  he  proceeds  to  carry  out  this  pet  capitalist  theory,  and  he  can 
only  do  it  by  betraying  the  class  that  trusted  him  and  lifted  him  as 
high  above  themselves  as  they  could  reach. 

"It  is  true  that  such  a  leader  is  in  favor  with  the  capitalists; 
that  their  newspapers  write  editorials  about  him  and  crown  him  a 
great  and  wise  leader;  and  that  ministers  of  the  gospel  make  his 
name  the  text  for  their  sermons,  and  emphasize  the  vital  point  that 
if  all  labor  leaders  were  such  as  he,  there  would  be  no  objections  to 
labor  organizations.  And  the  leader  feels  himself  flattered.  And 
when  he  is  charged  with  having  deserted  the  class  he  is  supposed 
to  serve,  he  cries  out  that  the  indictment  is  brought  by  a  discredited 
labor  leader.  And  that  is  probably  true.  The  person  who  brings 
a  charge  is  very  likely  discredited.  By  whom  ?  By  the  capitalist 
class,  of  course;  and  its  press  and  pulpit  and  'public'  opinion. 
And  in  the  present  state  of  the  working  class,  when  he  is  discredited 
by  the  capitalists,  he  is  at  once  repudiated  by  their  wage  slaves."  (6) 

Mr.  Debs's  attitude  toward  Mr.  Mitchell  and  Mr.  Gompers 
is  by  no  means  exceptional  among  Socialists.  Mr.  Gompers 
visited  Europe  in  1909,  spoke  at  length  in  Paris  and  Berlin, 
and  was  viewed  by  the  majority  of  the  European  Socialists 
and  unionists  almost  exactly  as  he  is  by  Mr.  Debs.  Among 
other  things  he  said  there,  was  that  the  very  kernel  of  the 
difference  between  the  European  and  the  American  labor 
movement  and  the  reason  why  the  wages  are  so  much  better 
in  America  than  in  Europe  was  the  friendlier  relations  be- 
tween the  government  and  the  working  people  in  this  coun- 
try—  this  after  all  the  recent  court  decisions  against  the 
unions,  decisions  which,  even  when  outwardly  milder,  have 
precisely  the  same  effect  as  the  hostile  legislation  and  admin- 
istration of  the  Continent.  Mr.  Gompers,  while  in  Europe, 
said  that  it  was  unnecessary  that  governments  and  the  work- 
ing people  should  misunderstand  one  another,  and  asked, 
"Is  there  not  for  us  all  the  common  ground  of  the  fatherland, 
of  common  interest  and  the  wish  that  we  feel  to  make  our 
people  more  prosperous,  happier  and  freer?"  "I  do  not 
know  what  I  will  see  there  [in  Hungary],"  he  continued, 
"but  this  much  I  will  say,  that  I  know  that  nothing  will 
convince  me  that  this  readiness  of  the  workingmen  to  fight 


346  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

against    the  government   and  of  the  government  to  fight 
against  the  workingmen  can  bring  anything  good  to  either 

*    side."  (7) 

\^  Such  expressions  naturally  aroused  the  European  Socialist 
and  Labor  press,  and  Kautsky  even  devoted  a  special  article 
to  Gompers  in  the  Neue  Zeit.  (8)  It  was  not  necessary 
in  a  Socialist  periodical  to  say  anything  against  Gompers's 
preaching  of  the  common  interests  of  capital  and  labor,  since 
there  is  practically  no  Socialist  who  would  not  agree  that  such 
a  belief  amounts  to  a  total  blindness  to  industrial  and  politi- 
cal conditions.  But  Kautsky  feared  that  the  German  work- 
ingmen might  give  some  credit  to  Gompers's  claim  that  the 
non-Socialist  policy  of  the  American  unions  was  responsible 
for  the  relatively  greater  prosperity  of  the  working  people 
in  America.  "The  workingmen,"  he  explained,  referring 
to  this  country,  "  have  not  won  their  higher  wages  in  the 
last  decade,  but  have  inherited  them  from  their  forefathers. 
They  were  principally  a  result  of  the  presence  of  splendid 
lands  from  which  every  man  who  wanted  to  become  inde- 
pendent got  as  much  as  he  needed." 

Then  he  proceeded  to  show  by  the  statistics  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Labor  that  daily  real  wages,  measured  in  terms  of 
what  they  would  buy,  had  actually  decreased  for  the  majority 
of  American  workingmen  during  the  last  decade.  It  is  true, 
as  Mr.  Gompers  replied,  that  the  hours  have  become  some- 
what less,  and  that  therefore  the  amount  of  real  wages  re- 
ceived per  hour  of  work  has  slightly  increased,  though  there 
are  few  working  people  who  will  count  themselves  very  for- 
tunate in  a  decrease  of  hours  if  it  .is  paid  for  even  in  a  part 
by  'a  decrease  of  the  real  wages  received  at  the  end  of  the 
day.  And  even  if  we  compare  the  early  nineties  with  the 
last  years  of  the  recent  decade,  we  find  that  the  slight  increase 
in  the  purchasing  power  of  the  total  wages  received  (i.e.  real 
wages)  amounted  at  the  most  to  no  more  than  two  or  three 
per  cent  in  these  fifteen  years.  In  a  word,  the  disproportion 
between  the  prosperity  of  the  wage  earning  and  capitalist 
classes  has  in  the  past  two  decades  become  much  greater 
than  ever  before. 

The  basis  of  the  Socialist  economic  criticism  of  existing 
society  —  and  one  that  appeals  to  the  majority  of  the  world's 
labor  unionists  also  —  is  that  while  the  proportion  of  the 
population  that  consists  of  wage  earners  is  everywhere 
increasing,  the  share  of  the  national  income  that  goes  to 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  347 

wages  is  everywhere  growing  less.  There  is  no  more  striking, 
easily  demonstrable,  or  generally  admitted  fact  in  modern 
life.  The  whole  purpose  of  Socialism  —  in  so  far  as  it  can 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  income,  is  to  reverse  this  tendency 
and  to  keep  it  reversed  until  private  capital  is  reduced  to 
impotence,  as  far  as  the  control  of  industry  is  concerned. 

Contrast  with  the  position  of  Gompers  and  Mitchell  the 
chief  official  of  the  German  unions,  Karl  Legien,  a  relatively 
conservative  representative  of  Continental  unionism. 

"The  unions,"  he  says,  "are  based  on  the  conviction  that  there 
is  an  unbridgeable  gulf  between  capital  and  labor.  This  does  not 
mean  that  the  capitalists  and  laborers  may  not,  as  men,  find  points  of 
contact ;  it  means  only  that  the  accumulation  of  capital,  resting  as 
it  does  on  keeping  from  the  laborer  a  part  of  the  products  of  his 
labor,  forces  a  propertyless  proletariat  to  sell  its  labor  at  any  price 
it  can  get.  Between  those  who  wish  to  maintain  these  conditions 
and  the  propertyless  laborers  there  is  a  wall  which  can  be  done  away 
with  only  by  the  abolition  of  wage  labor.  Here  the  views  prevail- 
ing in  the  unions  are  at  one  with  those  of  the  Social  Democratic 
Party." 

"The  unions  are  chiefly  occupied  in  the  effort  to  use  their  power 
to  shape  the  labor  contract  in  their  favor,  and  do  not  consider  it  as 
their  task  to  propagate  this  view,  but  holds  the  propaganda  as  being 
the  task  rather  of  the  Social  Democratic  Party  and  its  organizations." 

Even  the  struggle  for  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours 
carried  on  by  the  unions,  Legien  says,  is  fought  in  the  con- 
sciousness that  it  will  make  labor  "more  capable  of  the  final 
solution  of  the  social  problem."  He  reminds  us  that  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  .the  German  unionists  are  Social- 
ists, and  says  that  the  labor  conflict  itself  must  have  led  to 
this  result,  though  he  does  not  want  the  unions  to  support  the 
party  as  unions.  In  other  countries  of  the  Continent,  union- 
ists go  even  farther.  In  Austria,  Belgium,  and  elsewhere 
the  two  organizations  act  as  a  single  body,  and  in  France, 
not  satisfied  with  working  for  Socialism  as  members  of  the 
party,  unionists  also  make  it  a  declared  end  of  their  unions, 
independently  of  all  political  action,  and  shape  their  every- 
day policies  accordingly. 

It  is  only  when  we  come  to  Great  Britain  that  we  find  the 
unions  in  a  conciliatory  relation  with  employers  such  as  has 
hitherto  prevailed  in  the  United  States.  The  relation 
between  the  unions  and  capitalistic  "State  Socialists"  of 
Great  Britain  has  been  friendly.  As  I  have  already  noted, 


348  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

the  enthusiasm  of  the  British  unions  for  the  social  reforms  of 
the  Liberal  Party  and  government  has  hitherto  been  so  great 
that  they  consented  that  the  increase  of  the  taxation  needed 
to  pay  for  these  reforms  should  fall  on  their  shoulders,  while 
the  wealthy  classes  made  the  world  ring  with  epithets  of 
"revolution"  because  a  burden  of  almost  exactly  the  same 
weight  was  placed  on  them  to  pay  for  the  Dreadnoughts  they 
demanded,  and  because  land  was  nationally  taxed  for  the 
first  tune.  Mr.  Churchill  himself  conceded  that  his  social 
reform  budget  "draws  nearly  as  much  from  the  taxation  of 
tobacco  and  spirits,  which  are  the  luxuries  of  the  working 
classes,  who  pay  their  share  with  silence  and  dignity,  as  it 
does  from  those  wealthy  classes  upon  whose  behalf  such 
heart-rending  outcry  is  made."  (9) 

Perhaps  the  fact  that  the  labor  unions  of  Great  Britain 
up  to  1910  spent  less  than  a  tenth  part  of  their  income  on 
strikes  was  a  still  stronger  ground  for  Mr.  Churchill's  admira- 
tion, since  he  had  to  deal  with  the  strikers  as  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trade.  While  the  national  income  of  the  country 
has  been  increasing  enormously  in  the  past  two  decades, 
and  the  higher  or  taxed  incomes  have  more  than  doubled 
(which  is  a  rate  of  increase  far  greater  than  the  rise  in  prices), 
the  income  even  of  unionized  workers  has  not  kept  up  with 
this  rise.  In  a  word,  the  propertied  classes  are  getting  a 
larger  and  larger  share  of  the  national  income  (see  Mr.  Chur- 
chill's language  in  preceding  chapter).  Now  should  the 
unions  continue  in  the  moderation  of  their  demands,  —  or 
even  should  they  obtain  a  10  or  20  per  cent  increase  (as  some 
have  done  since  the  railway  and  seamen's  strike  of  1911), — 
the  propertied  classes  would  still  have  been  getting  a  larger  and 
larger  share  of  the  national  income.  From  1890  to  1899 
prices  in  England  are  estimated  to  have  fallen  5  per  cent, 
while  wages  of  organized  workingmen  rose  2  per  cent;  from 
1900  to  1908  prices  rose  6  per  cent,  while  these  wages  fell 
1  per  cent.  A  7  per  cent  improvement  in  the  first  decade 
was  followed  by  a  7  per  cent  retrogression  in  the  second  — 
among  organized  workers.  (10)  There  is  then  no  probability 
that  the  British  unions  will  check  the  constant  decrease  in  the 
share  of  the  total  wealth  of  the  country  that  goes  to  the  wage 
earner,  until  they  have  completed  the  reversal  of  older  policies 
now  in  progress.  That  this  may  soon  occur  is  indicated  by 
the  great  strikes  of  1911  (which  I  shall  consider  in  the  next 
chapter). 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  349 

The  American  unions  also  are  beginning  to  take  a  more 
radical  and  Socialistic  attitude.  At  its  Convention  at 
Columbus,  Ohio  (January,  1911),  the  United  Mine  Workers, 
after  prolonged  discussion,  passed  by  a  large  majority  an 
amendment  to  their  constitution,  forbidding  their  officers 
from  acting  as  members  of  the  Civic  Federation.  This  reso- 
lution was  confessedly  aimed  at  Mr.  John  Mitchell,  as  Vice 
President  of  the  Civic  Federation,  and  resulted  in  his  resigna- 
tion from  that  body.  It  marks  a  crisis  in  the  American 
Labor  movement.  The  Miners'  Union  had  already  indorsed 
Socialism,  its  Vice  President  is  a  party  Socialist,  and  its 
present  as  well  as  its  former  President  vote  the  Socialist 
ticket.  Having  forced  the  Federation  of  Labor  to  admit 
the  revolutionary  Western  Federation  of  Miners  into  the 
Federation  of  Labor  Congresses,  the  element  opposed  to 
Mr.  Gompers  and  Mr.  Mitchell's  conservative  tactics  has, 
for  the  first  time,  become  formidable,  embracing  one  third 
of  the  delegates,  and  is  likely  to  bring  about  great  changes 
within  a  few  years,  both  as  to  the  Federation's  political 
and  as  to  its  labor-union  policy. 

This  action  of  the  Miners  was  followed  a  few  months  later 
by  the  election  to  office  of  several  of  Mr.  Gompers's  Socialist 
opponents  in  his  own  union  (the  Cigarmakers).  Then 
another  of  Mr.  Gompers's  most  valued  lieutenants  (after  Mr. 
Mitchell),  Mr.  James  O'Connell,  for  many  years  President 
of  the  very  important  Machinists'  Union,  was  defeated  by  a 
Socialist,  Mr.  W.  H.  Johnston,  —  after  a  very  lively  contest 
in  which  Socialism  and  the  Civic  Federation,  and  their 
contrasting  the  labor  policies,  played  a  leading  part.  The 
old  conservative  trade  unionism  is  not  only  going,  but  it  is 
going  so  fast  that  one  or  two  more  years  like  the  last  would 
overwhelm  it  in  the  national  convention  of  the  Federation  of 
Labor  and  revolutionize  the  policy  of  the  whole  movement. 

The  change  in  the  political  attitude  of  the  American  unions 
has  been  equally  rapid.  Until  a  few  years  ago  the  majority 
of  them  were  opposed  to  cooperation  with  any  political 
party.  Then  they  decided  almost  unanimously  to  act 
nationally,  and  for  the  time  being  with  the  Democrats,  and 
this  decision  still  holds.  More  recently  several  local  labor 
parties  have  been  formed,  and  the  Socialist  Party  has  occa- 
sionally been  supported.  The  only  question  that  interests 
us,  however,  is  the  purpose  behind  these  changing  political 
tactics. 


350  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

It  is  natural  that  unionists  on  entering  into  the  Socialist 
Party  should  seek  to  control  it.  Socialists  make  no  objection 
at  this  point.  The  only  question  relates  to  their  purpose  in 
seeking  control.  A  prominent  Socialist  miner,  John  Walker, 
has  frankly  advocated  a  Labor  Party  of  the  British  type, 
while  others  wish  to  turn  the  Socialist  Party  into  that  sort 
of  an  organization;  while  the  Secretary  of  the  Oklahoma 
Federation  of  Labor,  on  joining  the  Party  said:  "Let  us 
get  into  the  Socialist  Party  —  on  the  inside  —  and  help  run 
it  as  we  think  it  should  be  run,"  and  then  gave  an  idea  of  how 
he  proposed  to  run  it  by  accusing  the  Party  of  containing 
too  many  people  "who  are  Socialists  before  anything  else." 
This  is  a  common  feeling  among  new  labor-union  recruits  in 
the  Party.  It  is  difficult  to  see  the  difference  between  those 
who  share  Walker's  view  and  want  to  carry  out  the  present 
non-Socialist  political  program  of  the  unions  through  a  non- 
Socialist  Labor  Party  and  those  who,  like  this  other  union 
official,  expect  to  use  the  Socialist  Party  for  the  same  purpose. 
Let  us  notice  the  similarity  of  certain  arguments  used  in 
favor  of  each  method. 

"The  Socialist  Party,"  says  the  organ  of  the  Garment  Workers' 
Union,  "does  not  command  the  confidence  of  American  labor  to 
the  extent  of  becoming  a  national  power  in  pur  day  and  generation, 
and  it  is,  therefore,  necessary  that  the  working  class  should  turn  its 
attention  to  the  formation  of  a  party  that  will  be  productive  of 
practical  results  in  sweeping  away  the  legislative  and  the  legal 
obstacles  that  now  stand  in  the  way  of  our  rights  and  progress."  (11) 

"Much  is  being  written  and  said  nowadays  as  to  the  danger  of 
Socialism  and  in  favor  of  trades  unionism,"  writes  the  Mine  Workers' 
Journal,  "To  us  the  condemnation  of  the  Socialists,  coming  as  it  does 
from  the  capitalistic  press,  is  a  reminder  that  of  the  two  evils  to 
their  selfish  class  interest,  they  prefer  the  least.  ...  It  is  useless  to 
attempt  to  divide  trades  unionism  from  Socialism.  It  cannot  be 
done.  They  have  all  learned  that  their  interests  are  common ;  they 
know  that  labor  divided  will  continue  to  suffer,  and  will  hang  to- 
gether before  they  will  allow  capital  to  hang  them  separately. 

"Indeed,  looking  at  trades  unionism  in  all  its  phases  and  from 
every  angle,  we  fail  to  see  why  Socialism  and  it  should  be  separated. 
The  man  or  men  in  the  movement  to-day  who  are  not  more  or  less 
Socialistic  in  their  belief  are  few  and  far  between  and  do  not  know 
what  the  principles  of  unionism  are,  or  what  it  stands  for.  We  are 
all  more  or  less  Socialistic  in  our  belief."  (12) 

A  perusal  of  the  labor  papers  in  general  shows  that  while 
a  number  agree  with  the  Garment  Workers  a  still  larger 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS          351 

number  share  the  opinion  of  the  Mine  Workers'  Journal.   Yet 
what  is  the  essential  difference  ? 

The  Garment  Workers'  organ  claims  that  the  European 
Socialists  and  trade  unionists  support  one  another's  candi- 
dates and  unite  their  power  without  the  Socialists  demand- 
ing the  indorsement  of  their  program,  and  argues  for  that 
policy  in  this  country.  This  statement  is  not  accurate. 
Only  in  England,  where  there  has  hitherto  been  no  independ- 
ent Socialist  action  of  any  consequence,  has  there  been  any 
such  compromise.  On  the  Continent  of  Europe  the  Socialists 
usually  agree  to  leave  the  unions  perfect  freedom  in  their 
business,  and  not  to  interfere  in  the  slightest  with  their 
action  on  the  economic  field,  but  there  is  no  important  instance 
in  recent  years  where  they  have  compromised  with  them  at 
the  ballot  box.  And  this  error  is  shared  by  the  Mine  Workers' 
Journal,  which,  as  I  have  just  shown,  is  friendly  rather  than 
hostile  to  Socialism.  In  another  editorial  in  this  organ  we 
find  it  said  that  "whenever  Socialism  in  America  adopts  the 
methods  of  the  British,  and  other  European  toilers  and  pulls 
in  harness  with  trade  unionism,  it  is  bound  to  make  headway 
faster  than  at  present,  because  there  is  scarcely  a  man  in 
the  labor  movement  that  is  not  more  or  less  of  a  Socialist."  (12) 
Here  again  the  British  (Labor  Party)  and  the  Continental 
(Socialist)  methods  are  confused.  It  is  true  that  the  Social- 
ist parties  and  the  labor  unionists  everywhere  act  together. 
But  there  are  two  fundamental  differences  between  the  situa- 
tion in  Great  Britain  and  that  on  the  Continent.  A  large 
part  of  the  unions  on  the  Continent  are  extremely  radical 
if  not  revolutionary  in  their  labor-union  tactics,  and  secondly, 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  their  members  are  Socialists 
in  politics.  Surely  there  could  be  no  greater  contrast  than 
that  between  the  swallowing  up  of  the  budding  Socialist 
movement  by  non-Socialist  labor  unions  in  Great  Britain 
and  the  support  of  the  Socialist  Party  by  the  revolutionary 
unionist  on  the  Continent. 

In  America  only  a  minority  of  the  unions  are  definitely 
and  clearly  Socialist.  The  local  federations  of  the  unions  in 
many  of  our  leading  cities  have  declared  for  the  Party. 
Among  the  national  organizations,  however,  only  the  West- 
ern Federation  of  Miners,  the  Brewers,  the  Hat  and  Cap 
Makers,  the  Bakers,  and  a  few  others,  numbering  together 
no  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  members,  have  definitely 
indorsed  Socialism.  The  Coal  Miners,  numbering  nearly 


352  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

300,000,  have  indorsed  collective  ownership  of  industry, 
but  without  saying  anything  about  the  Socialist  Party. 
Besides  these,  the  Socialist  Party,  of  course,  has  numerous 
individual  adherents  in  every  union.  On  the  whole  the 
Socialists  are  very  much  outnumbered  in  the  unions,  and  as 
long  as  this  condition  remains,  the  majority  of  Socialists  do 
not  desire  anything  approaching  fusion  between  the  two 
movements. 

Half  a  century  ago,  it  is  true,  Marx  himself  favored  the 
Socialists  entering  into  a  labor  union  party  in  England.  He 
assumed  that  English  unions  would  soon  go  into  politics, 
whereas  they  took  half  a  century  to  do  it ;  he  assumed,  also, 
that  when  they  entered  politics  they  would  be  more  or  less 
militant  and  independent,  and  he  never  imagined  that  during 
fifteen  years  of  "independent  action"  they  would  oppose 
revolutionary  and  militant  ideas  more  than  ever,  and  would 
even  go  so  far  in  support  of  the  Liberal  Party  as  almost  to 
bring  about  a  split  within  their  own  anti-revolutionary  ranks. 
Certainly  Marx  expected  that  they  would  accept  his  leading 
principles,  whereas  only  the  smallest  minority  of  the  present 
Labor  Party  has  done  so,  while  the  majority  has  not  yet 
consented  to  make  Socialism  an  element  of  the  Party's 
constitution,  confining  themselves  to  a  broad  general  declara- 
tion in  favor  of  "State  Socialism"  —  and  even  this  not  to 
be  binding  on  its  members. 

Marx's  standard  for  a  workingmen's  party  was  Socialism 
and  nothing  less  than  Socialism.  In  his  famous  letter  on  the 
Gotha  program  addressed  in  1875  to  Bebel,  Liebknecht,  and 
others,  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  Socialist  Party 
and  perhaps  the  greatest  practical  crisis  in  Marx's  lifetime, 
he  said,  it  will  be  recalled,  that  "every  step  of  real  movement 
is  more  important  than  a  dozen  programs,"  but  he  was  even 
then  against  any  sacrifice  of  essential  principle.  He  saw 
that  the  workingmen  themselves  might  be  satisfied  by  "the 
mere  fact  of  the  union"  of  his  followers  with  those  of  LaSalle, 
but  he  said  that  it  was  an  error  to  believe  that  this  moment- 
ous result  could  not  be  bought  too  dearly,  and  if  any  prin- 
ciple was  to  be  sacrificed,  he  preferred,  instead  of  fusion,  "a 
simple  agreement  against  the  common  enemy." 

While  Socialist  workingmen,  then,  are  inclined  to  attach 
more  importance  to  the  Socialist  Party  than  to  conservative 
unionism,  they  expect  the  new  aggressive,  democratic,  and 
revolutionary  unionism  to  do  even  more  for  Socialism,  at 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LABOR  UNIONS  353 

least  in  the  expected  crisis  of  the  future,  than  the  Party  itself. 
The  tendency  of  the  unions  towards  politics  is  merely  an 
automatic  result  of  the  tendency  of  governments  and  capital- 
ists towards  a  certain  form  of  collectivism.  Far  more  sig- 
nificant is  their  tendency  towards  Socialism  whether  through 
politics  or  through  the  strike,  the  boycott,  and  other  means. 

Trade  unionism,  transferred  to  the  field  of  politics,  is  not 
Socialism.  The  struggles  against  employers  for  more  wages, 
less  hours,  and  better  conditions  has  no  necessary  relation 
to  the  struggle  against  capitalism  for  the  control  of  industry 
and  government.  The  former  struggle  may  evolve  into  the 
latter,  and  usually  does  so,  but  long  periods  may  also  inter- 
vene when  it  takes  no  step  in  that  direction.  Moreover, 
a  trade  union  party  of  the  British  type,  whether  it  takes 
the  name  Socialist  or  not,  if  it  acts  as  rival  to  a  genuine 
Socialist  Party,  checks  the  latter's  growth. 

When  revolutionary  labor  organizations  composed  largely 
of  genuine  Socialists  enter  into  politics,  the  situation  is  com- 
pletely reversed  —  even  when  such  organizations  take  the 
step  primarily  for  the  sake  of  their  unions  rather  than  to  aid 
the  Socialist  Party.  This  situation  I  shall  consider  in  the 
following  chapter. 


2A 


CHAPTER  V 

SYNDICALISM;    SOCIALISM  THROUGH   DIRECT 
ACTION  OF  LABOR  UNIONS 

IN  America,  France,  Italy,  and  England,  as  well  as  in 
Germany  (in  a  modified  form)  a  new  and  more  radical  labor- 
union  policy  has  been  rapidly  gaining  the  upper  hand.  This 
new  movement  —  in  its  purely  economic,  as  well  as  its  political, 
bearings  —  is  of  far  greater  moment  to  Socialists  than  the 
political  tendencies  of  those  unions  that  continue  to  follow 
the  old  tactics  in  their  direct  relations  with  employers. 

In  America  and  in  England,  unfortunately,  the  name  given 
to  this  new  movement,  "industrial  unionism,"  is  somewhat 
ambiguous.  A  more  correct  term  would  be  "labor"  union- 
ism as  distinct  from  "trade"  unionism,  or  "class  unionism" 
against  "sectional  unionism."  By  "industrial  unionism" 
the  promoters  of  the  new  movement  means  that  all  the  em- 
ployees of  a  given  industry  are  to  be  solidly  bound  together 
in  a  single  union  instead  of  being  divided  into  many  sepa- 
rate organizations  as  so  often  happens  to-day,  and  so  as  to 
act  as  a  unit  against  the  employer,  as,  for  example,  the  steel 
workers,  machinists,  longshoremen,  structural  iron  workers, 
etc.,  are  all  to  be  united  against  the  Steel  Trust.  The 
essential  idea  is  not  any  particular  form  of  united  action, 
but  united  action.  Certainly  the  united  action  of  all  the 
trades  at  work  under  a  single  employer  or  employers'  asso- 
ciation is  of  the  first  importance,  but  it  is  equally  important 
that  "industrial"  unions  so  composed  should  aid  one  another, 
that  the  united  railway  organizations,  for  example,  should 
be  ready  to  strike  with  seamen,  dockers,  etc.,  as  was  done  in 
the  recent  British  strike.  An  interview  with  Mr.  Vernon 
Hartshorn,  who  recently  headed  the  poll  in  the  election  for 
the  executive  committee  of  the  important  South  Wales 
Mining  Federation,  indicates  the  tendency  in  Great  Britain 
at  the  present  moment  —  when  both  coal  and  railway  strikes 
are  threatened  on  a  national  scale  —  not  merely  towards 
industrial  unionism,  but  towards  the  far  more  important 

354 


SYNDICALISM  355 

union  of  industrial  unions,  which  is  really  the  underlying 
idea  in  the  minds  of  most,  though  not  all,  of  the  propagandists 
of  "industrial  unionism." 

"I  think  it  a  very  silly  business,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Hartshorn  em- 
phatically, "for  the  workers  in  different  industries  to  be  proceeding 
with  national  movements  independently  of  each  other.  A  short  time 
ago  we  had  a  national  stoppage  on  the  railways ;  that,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  rendered  the  miners  idle.  Before  that  we  had  something 
in  the  nature  of  a  national  stoppage  in  the  case  of  the  seamen's 
dispute ;  that,  also,  in  many  districts  paralysed  the  mining  industry 
and  rendered  idle  the  workmen.  Now  it  appears  likely  that  the 
miners  will  be  taking  part  in  a  national  stoppage  which,  hi  turn, 
will  render  the  railway  men  and  seamen  idle. 

"The  idea  is  gradually  dawning  upon  all  sections  of  organized 
labor  that  the  right  thing  to  do  would  be  for  these  three  unions, 
through  their  executives,  to  establish  a  working  alliance  by  means 
of  which  united  action  should  be  taken  to  secure  reforms  which 
would  result  in  the  raising  of  the  standard  of  living  of  the  whole  of 
the  workmen  employed  in  these  undertakings.  Of  course  the  griev- 
ances in  different  trades  differ  considerably  in  points  of  detail,  but 
they  all  have  a  common  basis  in  that  they  relate  to  wages  and  con- 
ditions of  work.  If  the  three  organizations  could  be  got  to  act 
together  with  a  view  of  establishing  a  guaranteed  minimum  wage  for 
all  workmen  employed,  then  not  all  the  forces  of  the  Crown,  nor  all 
the  powers  of  government,  could  prevent  them  from  emancipating 
themselves  from  their  present  deplorable  position."  (1) 

It  is  equally  necessary  for  the  unions  in  order  to  obtain 
maximum  results  that  a  special  relation  should  be  established 
between  the  members  of  such  trades  as  are  to  be  found  hi 
more  than  one  industry.  Teamsters,  stationary  engineers, 
machinists,  and  blacksmiths,  for  example,  whether  employed 
by  mines,  railways,  or  otherwise,  can  aid  one  another  hi 
obvious  ways  —  as  by  securing  positions  for  blacklisted  men 
and  preventing  non-unionists  from  obtaining  employment  - 
by  means  of  a  special  "trade"  organization  or  federation  that 
cuts  across  the  various  "industrial"  unions  or  federations. 
All  this,  indeed,  is  provided  for  in  the  plans  of  the  "industrial 
unionists,"  in  the  idea  of  gradually  reorganizing  the  present 
loose  Federation  of  Labor  into  "a  union  of  unions,"  or,  as 
they  express  it,  "One  Big  Union."  This  last  term  also  is 
not  very  fortunate,  for  it  is  by  no  means  proposed  to  form 
one  absolutely  centralized  organization,  like  the  former 
Knights  of  Labor,  but  to  preserve  a  considerable  measure 


356  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

of  autonomy  for  the  constituent  industrial  unions.  Neither 
does  the  new  unionism  require,  as  some  of  its  exponents 
allege,  the  abolition  of  the  older  trade  unions,  either  local  or 
national,  but  only  that  all  unions  shall  be  democratically 
organized  and  open  to  unskilled  labor,  and  that  the  general 
organization,  of  which  they  are  all  a  part,  shall  be  the  first 
consideration,  and  the  local  groupings  whether  by  trade  or 
industry  only  secondary. 

The  principle  of  the  new  union  policy  is  exactly  the  same 
translated  into  terms  of  economic  action,  as  the  principle 
of  revolutionary  Socialism  as  conceived  by  Marx,  and  hitherto 
applied  by  Socialists  chiefly  on  the  political  field.  In  the 
Communist  Manifesto  Marx  says  that  the  chief  thing  that 
distinguishes  the  Socialists  from  the  other  working-class 
parties  is  that  the  former  "  always  and  everywhere  represent 
the  interests  of  the  movement  as  a  whole."  So  while  the 
older  unions  represented  the  economic  struggle  of  certain 
more  or  less  extensive  parts  of  the  working  class,  the  industrial 
unionists  aim  at  a  unionism  that  represents  the  whole  of 
the  working  class,  and,  since  the  ranks  of  labor  are  always 
open,  all  non-capitalist  humanity.  A  closely  organized 
federation  of  all  the  unions  will  rely  very  strongly  upon 
numbers  and  embrace  a  large  proportion  of  unskilled  workers. 
It  will,  therefore,  be  forced  to  fight  the  cause  of  the  common 
man.  But  this  can  only  be  done  by  fighting  against  every 
form  of  oppression  and  privilege  —  all  of  which  bear  on  the 
men  at  the  bottom. 

The  industrial  policy  idea  has  received  its  most  remarkable 
indorsement  in  the  great  British  railway  strike  of  1911. 
Before  showing  what  lay  behind  this  epoch-making  move- 
ment, let  me  refer  to  the  great  change  in  the  British  Union 
world  that  preceded  it. 

In  1910  there  occurred  an  unprecedented  series  of  strikes 
in  the  four  larges  industries  of  the  country,  the  railroads,  ship- 
building, cotton,  and  coal-mining  —  all  within  a  few  months 
of  one  another,  and  all  against  the  advice  of  the  officials  of  the 
unions.  The  full  and  exact  significance  of  this  movement  was 
seen  when  the  hitherto  conservative  Trade  Union  Congress, 
after  a  very  vigorous  debate,  decided,  on  the  motion  of  Ben 
Tillett,  to  take  a  referendum  of  the  unions  on  the  question  of 
the  "practicability  of  a  confederation  of  all  trades"  and  on  the 
"possibility  of  terminating  all  trade  agreements  on  a  given  date 
after  each  year." 


SYNDICALISM  357 

In  the  same  year  a  great  agitation  began,  led  by  the  most 
prominent  advocate  of  industrial  unionism  in  Great  Britain, 
the  Socialist,  Tom  Mann,  who  with  John  Burns  had  been  one 
of  the  organizers  of  the  great  dockers'  strike  in  1886,  and  who 
had  returned,  in  1910,  from  many  years  of  successful  agitation 
in  Australia  to  preach  the  new  unionism  in  his  home  country. 
That  this  agitation  was  one  of  the  causes  of  the  great  seamen's, 
dockers',  and  railway  strikes  that  followed  is  indicated  by 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Mann  was  at  once  given  the  chief  position 
in  this  movement. 

His  first  principle  is  that  the  unions  should  include  all 
the  workers,  in  their  respective  industries :  — 

"Skilled  workers,  in  many  instances  doing  but  little  work,  re- 
ceive from  two  to  seven  or  eight  pounds  a  week,  whilst  the  laborer, 
having  the  same  responsibilities  as  regards  family  and  citizenship, 
is  compelled  to  accept  one  third  of  it  or  less. 

"  This  must  not  be.  We  must  not  preach  social  equality  and 
utterly  fail  to  practice  it;  and  for  those  receiving  the  higher  pay  to 
try  and  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  lower-paid  man  for  better  con- 
ditions by  telling  him  it  will  be  put  right  under  Socialism,  is  on  a  par 
with  the  parson  pretending  to  assuage  the  sufferings  of  the  poverty- 
stricken  by  saying,  '  It  will  be  better  in  the  next  world.'  It  must 
be  put  right  in  this  world,  and  we  must  see  to  it  now." 

Unions  composed  exclusively  of  skilled  workers,  as  many 
of  the  present  ones,  operate  against  the  interests  of  the  less 
skilled  —  often  without  actually  intending  to  do  so.  Mr. 
Mitchell,  for  instance,  concedes  that  the  trade  unions  bring 
about  "the  elimination  of  men  who  are  below  a  certain  fixed 
standard  of  efficiency."  This  argument  will  appeal  strongly 
to  employers  and  believers  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest  doc- 
trine. But  it  will  scarcely  appeal  to  the  numerous  unskilled 
workers  eliminated,  or  the  still  more  numerous  workers  whose 
employment  is  thus  lessened  at  every  slack  season.  Mr. 
Edmond  Kelly  shows  how  the  principle  acts—  "Where 
there  is  a  minimum  wage  of  $4  a  day  the  workman  can  no 
longer  choose  to  do  only  $3  worth  of  work  and  be  paid  accord- 
ingly, but  he  must  earn  $4  or  else  cease  from  work,  at  least 
in  that  particular  trade,  locality,  or  establishment."  (2) 
The  result  is  that  the  highest  skilled  workmen  obtain  steady 
employment  through  the  union,  while  the  less  skilled  are 
penalized  by  underemployment.  The  unions  have  equalized 
daily  wages,  but  the  employer  has  replied  by  making  employ- 


358  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

ment  and  therefore  annual  wages  all  the  more  unequal,  and 
many  of  the  workers  may  have  lost  more  than  they  gained. 
Whereas  if  each  man  could  secure  an  equal  share  of  work, 
he  might  be  paid  according  to  his  efficiency  and  yet  be  far 
better  off  than  now.  But  the  only  way  to  secure  an  equal 
amount  of  work  for  all  is  through  a  union  where  all  have  an 
equal  voice  and  where  the  union  is  strong  enough  to  have  a 
say  as  to  who  is  to  be  employed. 

It  is  this  tendency  either  automatically  or  intentionally 
actually  to  injure  unskilled  labor,  that  has  led  men  like  Mann 
and  Debs  and  Haywood  to  their  severe  criticism  of  the  present 
policies  of  the  unions,  and  even  affords  some  ground  for 
Tolstoi's  classification  of  well-paid  artisans,  electricians, 
and  mechanics  among  the  exploiters  of  unskilled  labor.  In 
the  days  of  serfdom,  the  great  writer  said,  "Only  one  class 
were  slave  owners ;  all  classes,  except  the  most  numerous 
one  —  consisting  of  peasants  who  have  too  little  land,  la- 
borers, and  workingmen  —  are  slave-owners  now."  The 
master  class,  Tolstoi  says,  to-day  includes,  not  only  "nobles, 
merchants,  officials,  manufacturers,  professors,  teachers, 
authors,  musicians,  painters,  rich  peasants,  and  the  rich  men's 
servants,"  but  also  "well-paid  artisans,  electricians,  mechan- 
ics," etc. 

Mr.  Mann  thus  defines  the  attitude  of  this  new  unionism 
to  the  old :  — 

"It  is  well  known  that  in  Britain,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  only  a 
minority  of  the  workers  organized;  of  the  ten  millions  of  men 
eligible  for  industrial  organization  only  one  fourth  are  members  of 
trade  unions ;  naturally  these  are,  in  the  main,  the  skilled  workers, 
who  have  associated  together  with  a  view  to  maintaining  for  them- 
selves the  advantage  accruing  to  skilled  workers,  when  definite 
restrictions  are  placed  upon  the  numbers  able  to  enter  and  remain 
in  the  trades. 

"We  have  had  experience  enough  to  know  that  the  difficulties 
of  maintaining  a  ring  fence  around  an  occupation,  which  secures  to 
those  inside  the  fence  special  advantages,  are  rapidly  increasing, 
and  in  a  growing  number  of  instances,  the  fence  has  been  entirely 
broken  down  by  changes  in  the  methods  of  production.  We  know, 
further,  that .  .  .  the  majority  of  trade  unionists  still  remain  section- 
ally  isolated,  powerless  to  act  except  in  single  sectional  bodies,  and 
incapable  of  approaching  each  other  and  merging  and  amalgamating 
forces  for  common  action.  This  it  is  that  is  responsible  for  the 
modern  practice  of  entering  into  lengthy  agreements  between  employers 
and  workers.  Sectional  trade  unions  being  incapable  of  offensive 


SYNDICALISM  359 

action,  and  gradually  giving  way  before  the  persistent  power  of  the 
better  organized  capitalist  class,  they  fall  back  upon  agreements  for 
periods  of  from  two  to  five  years,  during  which  time  they  undertake 
that  no  demands  shall  be  made."  (My  italics.) 

The  industrialists,  therefore,  advocate  the  termination  of 
all  wage  agreements  simultaneously  and  at  short  intervals 
or  even  at  will  (like  tenancies  at  will,  or  call  loans).  They 
claim  that  employers  are  practically  free  to  terminate  exist- 
ing agreements  whenever  they  please,  as  they  can  always  find 
grounds  for  dismissing  individuals  or  for  temporarily  shutting 
down  their  works  or  for  otherwise  discriminating  against 
active  unionists  or  varying  the  terms  of  a  contract  before  its 
expiration.  But  it  is  in  America  that  the  policy  of  no  agree- 
ments, or  agreements  at  will  is  most  advanced.  In  Great 
Britain  it  is  thought  that  agreements  for  one  year  and  all 
ending  on  the  same  day  may  lead  to  the  same  results.  If 
there  is  a  central  organization  with  power  to  call  strikes  on 
the  part  of  any  combination  of  unions,  and  the  large  majority 
of  the  workers  are  organized,  it  is  held  that  the  new  union- 
ism will  soon  prove  irresistible,  even  if  agreements  in  this 
form  are  retained. 

The  recent  strikes  have  not  only  been  stimulated  by  this 
gospel  and  led  by  its  chief  representatives,  Tom  Mann, 
Ben  Tillett,  and  others,  but  from  the  very  first  they  have  been 
an  actual  application  of  the  new  idea  and  have  marked  a  long 
step  towards  the  complete  reorganization  of  the  British 
unions.  They  were  started  with  the  seamen's  strike  hi  June, 
when  the  dockers  in  many  places  struck  in  sympathy,  at  the 
same  time  adding  demands  of  their  own.  When  the  seamen 
won  their  strike,  they  refused  to  go  back  to  work  at  several 
points,  against  the  advice  of  their  conservative  officials, 
until  the  dockers  received  what  they  were  striking  for.  With 
the  dockers  were  involved  teamsters,  and  these  from  the 
first  had  agreed  to  support  one  another,  for  they  were  both 
connected  with  Mr.  Mann's  "National  Transport  Workers' 
Federation."  And  the  railway  strike  was  largely  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  railway  unions  decided  at  least  to  cooperate  with 
this  federation.  The  dockers  had  remained  on  strike  at 
Liverpool  in  sympathy  with  the  railway  porters  who  had 
struck  in  the  first  instance  to  aid  the  dockers,  and  at  the 
first  strike  conference  of  the  railway  union  officials,  forty-one 
being  present,  it  was  voted  unanimously  "that  the  union  was 


360  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

determined  not  to  settle  the  dispute  with  the  companies 
unless  the  lockout  imposed  upon  their  co-workers  because  of 
their  support  of  the  railroad  men  at  Liverpool  and  elsewhere 
is  removed  and  all  the  men  reinstated." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  railway  strike  would 
neither  have  taken  place  at  the  critical  time  it  did,  nor  have 
gone  as  far  as  it  went,  except  for  this  new  and  concerted  action 
which  embraced  even  the  least  skilled  and  least  organized 
classes  of  labor. 

Accompanying  this  movement  toward  common  action, 
"solidarity"  of  labor,  and  more  and  more  general  strikes, 
was  the  closely  related  reaction  against  existing  agreements  — 
on  the  ground  that  they  cripple  the  unions'  power  of  effective 
industrial  warfare.  For  several  years  there  had  been  a  simul- 
taneous movement  on  the  part  of  the  "State  Socialist" 
government  towards  compulsory  arbitration,  and  among  the 
unions  against  any  interference  on  the  part  of  a  government 
over  which  they  have  little  or  no  control  —  the  railway  strike 
being  directed,  according  to  the  unionists,  as  much  against 
the  government  as  against  the  railways.  For  many  years  the 
government,  represented  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  or  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill,  had  acted  as  arbitrator  in  every  great  industrial 
conflict,  and  had  secured  many  minor  concessions  for  the 
unions.  As  long  as  no  critical  conflict  occurred  that  might 
materially  weaken  either  the  government  or  the  capitalist 
or  employing  classes  as  a  whole,  this  policy  worked  well. 
It  was  only  by  a  railway  strike,  or  perhaps  by  a  seamen's 
or  miners'  strike  that  it  could  be  put  to  a  real  test.  By  the 
settlement  of  the  threatened  railway  strike  of  1907  the 
employees  had  gained  very  little,  and  had  voluntarily  left 
the  final  power  to  decide  disputes  in  the  hands  of  govern- 
ment arbitrators.  A  conservative  Labourite,  Mr.  J.  R.  Mac- 
Donald,  writing  late  in  1910,  said :  — 

"We  held  at  the  time  that  the  agreement  which  Mr.  Bell  accepted 
on  behalf  of  the  Railway  Servants  would  not  work.  It  was  a  sur- 
render. The  railway  directors  were  consulted  for  days ;  they  were 
allowed  to  alter  the  terms  of  agreement  at  their  own  sweet  will,  and 
when  they  agreed,  the  men's  representatives  were  asked  to  go  to  the 
Board  of  Trade  and  were  told  that  they  could  not  alter  a  comma, 
could  not  sleep  over  the  proposal,  could  not  confer  with  any  one 
about  it,  had  to  accept  it  there  and  then.  In  a  moment  of  weakness 
they  accepted.  An  agreement  come  to  in  such  a  way  was  not  likely 
to  be  of  any  use  to  the  men."  (3) 


SYNDICALISM  361 

Nevertheless,  this  extremely  important  settlement  was 
accepted  by  the  union.  Mr.  Churchill  did  not  know  how 
to  restrain  his  enthusiasm  for  unions  that  were  so  good  as  to 
fall  in  so  obediently  with  his  political  plans.  "They  are 
not  mere  visionaries  or  dreamers,"  says  Churchill,  "weaving 
airy  Utopias  out  of  tobacco  smoke.  They  are  not  political 
adventurers  who  are  eager  to  remodel  the  world  by  rule  of 
thumb,  who  are  proposing  to  make  the  infinite  complexities 
of  scientific  civilization  and  the  multitudinous  phenomena  of 
great  cities  conform  to  a  few  barbarous  formulas  which  any 
moderately  intelligent  parrot  could  repeat  in  a  fortnight. 
The  fortunes  of  trade  unions  are  interwoven  with  the  indus- 
tries they  serve.  The  more  highly  organized  trade  unions 
are,  the  more  clearly  they  recognize  their  responsibilities."  (4) 

By  1911  the  whole  situation  was  completely  reversed. 
Over  less  important  bodies  of  capitalists  and  employers  than 
the  railways,  the  government  had  power  and  a  will  to  exercise 
its  power.  The  railways,  however,  are  practically  a  function 
of  government  —  absolutely  indispensable  if  it  is  to  retain 
its  other  powers  undiminished.  It  was  for  this  reason  that 
little  if  any  governmental  force  was  used  against  them,  and 
the  agreement  of  1907  came  to  be  of  even  less  value  to  the 
men  than  agreements  made  in  other  industries.  When  the 
chorus  of  union  complaints  continued  to  swell,  and  the  men 
asked  the  government  to  bring  pressure  on  the  railways,  at 
least  to  meet  their  committee,  it  acknowledged  itself  either 
unable  or  unwilling  to  take  any  effective  action  unless  to 
renew  the  offer  to  appoint  another  royal  commission,  essen- 
tially of  the  same  character  as  that  of  1907  except  that 
it  should  be  smaller  and  should  act  more  speedily.  This  still 
meant  that  the  third  member  of  the  board  was  to  be  appointed 
by  a  government,  in  which  experience  had  taught  the  workers 
they  could  have  no  confidence  —  at  least  in  its  dealings  with 
the  powerful  railways., 

In  view  of  this  inherent  weakness  of  the  government,  or 
its  hostility  to  the  new  and  aggressive  unionism,  or  perhaps  a 
combination  of  both,  the  unions  had  no  recourse  other  than 
a  direct  agreement  or  a  strike.  But  the  refusal  of  the  rail- 
ways to  meet  the  men  left  no  alternative  other  than  the  strike, 
and  at  the  same  time  showed  that  they  did  not  much  fear 
that  the  unions  could  strike  with  success.  It  was  no  longer 
a  question  of  the  justice  or  injustice,  truth  or  untruth,  of 
the  unions'  claims.  The  railways,  in  a  perfectly  practical 


362  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

and  businesslike  spirit,  questioned  the  power  of  the  unions, 
by  means  of  a  strike,  to  cause  them  sufficient  damage  to  make 
it  profitable  even  to  meet  their  representatives  —  without 
the  presence  of  a  government  representative,  who,  they  had 
learned  by  experience,  would  in  all  probability  take  a  position 
with  which  they  would  be  satisfied.  Mr.  Asquith's  offer,  then, 
to  submit  the  "correctness"  of  the  unions'  statements  and 
the  "soundness"  of  their  contentions  to  a  tribunal,  was  en- 
tirely beside  the  point.  The  representatives  of  the  railways 
were  sure  to  give  such  a  tribunal  to  understand,  however  dip- 
lomatically and  insidiously,  that  the  unions  were  without 
that  power,  which  alone,  in  the  minds  of  "practical"  men, 
can  justify  any  considerable  demand,  such  as  the  settlement 
of  all  questions  through  the  representatives  of  the  men  (the 
recognition  of  the  union). 

Doubtless  the  railways  had  refused  to  meet  the  union  rep- 
resentatives until  they  felt  assured  that  the  government's 
position  would  on  the  whole  be  satisfactory  to  them.  The 
government's  real  attitude  was  made  plain  when,  after  the 
refusal  of  the  unions  practically  to  leave  their  whole  liveli- 
hood and  future  in  its  hands,  as  in  1907,  it  used  this  as  a 
pretext  for  taking  sides  against  them  —  not  by  prohibiting 
the  strike,  but  by  limiting  more  and  more  narrowly  the  scope 
it  was  to  be  allowed  to  take. 

The  government  loudly  protested  its  impartiality,  and 
gave  very  powerful  and  plausible  arguments  for  interference. 
But  the  laborers  feel  that  the  right  not  to  work  is  as  essential 
as  life  itself,  and  all  that  distinguishes  them  essentially  from 
slaves,  and  that  no  argument  whatever  is  valid  against  it. 
Let  us  look  at  a  few  of  the  government  statements :  — 

The  government,  said  the  Premier,  was  perfectly  impartial 
in  regard  to  the  merits  of  the  various  points  of  dispute.  The 
government  had  regard  exclusively  for  the  interests  oj  the 
public,  and  having  regard  for  those  interests  they  could  not 
allow  the  paralysis  of  the  railway  systems  throughout  the 
country,  and  would  have  to  take  the  necessary  steps  to  pre- 
vent such  paralysis. 

The  representatives  of  the  unions  replied  by  a  public  state- 
ment, in  which  they  declared  that  this  was  an  "unwarrantable 
threat"  and  an  attempt  to  put  the  responsibility  for  the 
suspension  of  work  on  the  unions  :  — 

"We  consider  the  statement  made  in  behalf  of  his  Majesty's 
government,  an  unwarrantable  threat  uttered  against  the  railroad 


SYNDICALISM  363 

workers  who  for  years  have  made  repeated  applications  to  the 
Board  of  Trade  and  also  to  Parliament  to  consider  the  advisability 
of  amending  the  conciliation  board  scheme  of  1907.  .  .  .  And 
further  it  shows  a  failure  of  the  Board  of  Trade  to  amend  its  own 
scheme,  and  also  of  the  railroad  companies  to  give  an  impartial  and 
fair  interpretation  of  such  schemes.  .  .  .  And  inasmuch  as  this 
joint  meeting  has  already  urged  the  employers  to  meet  us  with  a 
view  to  discussing  the  whole  position  and  which,  if  agreed  to  by 
them,  would  in  our  opinion  have  settled  the  matter,  we  therefore 
refuse  to  accept  the  responsibility  the  government  has  attempted  to 
throw  upon  us,  and  further  respectfully  but  firmly  ask  his  Majesty's 
government  whether  the  responsibility  of  the  railroad  companies 
is  in  any  degree  less  than  that  of  other  employers  of  labor." 

In  other  words,  there  is  and  can  be  no  law  compelling  men 
to  labor,  and  no  matter  what  the  consequences  of  their  refusal 
to  work,  it  is  a  matter  that  concerns  the  workers  themselves 
more  than  all  other  persons. 

Mr.  Winston  Churchill  made  a  more  detailed  statement. 
He  said  that  "the  government  was  taking  all  necessary 
steps  to  make  sure  that  the  food  supply  as  well  as  fuel  and 
other  essentials  should  not  be  interrupted  on  the  railways  or 
at  the  ports." 

"All  services  vital  to  the  community  should  be  maintained,  and 
the  government  would  see  to  that,  not  because  they  were  on  the  side 
either  of  the  employers  or  the  workmen,  but  because  they  were 
bound  to  protect  the  public  from  the  danger  that  a  general  arrest  of 
industry  would  entail. "  He  continued :  — 

"The  means  whereby  the  people  of  this  land  live  are  highly 
artificial,  and  a  serious  breakdown  would  lead  to  starvation  among 
a  great  number  of  poorer  people.  Not  the  well-to-do  would  suffer, 
but  the  poor  of  the  great  cities  and  those  dependent  upon  them, 
who  would  be  quite  helpless  if  the  machinery  by  which  they  are  fed 
—  on  which  they  are  dependent  for  wages  —  was  thrown  out  of  gear. 

"The  government  believes  that  the  arrangements  made  for 
working  the  lines  of  communication,  and  for  the  maintenance  of 
order,  will  prove  effective ;  but,  if  not,  other  measures  of  even  larger 
scope  will  be  taken  promptly.  It  must  be  clearly  understood  that 
there  is  no  escape  from  these  facts,  and,  as  they  affect  the  supply 
of  food  for  the  people,  and  the  safety  of  the  country,  they  are  far  more 
important  than  anything  else." 

To  this  the  railway  workers  answered  that  it  is  to  protect 
their  own  food  that  they  strike,  and  that  food  is  as  important 
to  them  as  to  others,  that  practically  all  those  who  are  depend- 
ent on  wages  are  willing  to  undergo  the  last  degree  of  suffer- 


364  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

ing  to  preserve  the  right  to  strike,  that  the  means  of  liveli- 
hood of  this  majority  are  no  whit  less  important  than  the 
"safety"  of  the  rest  of  the  country.  Moreover,  if  the  gov- 
ernment is  allowed  to  use  military  or  other  means  to  aid  the 
railways  to  transport  food,  fuel,  and  other  things,  more  or  less 
essential,  it  prevents  that  very  "paralysis"  which  is  the  nec- 
essary object  of  every  strike.  Industrial  warfare  of  this 
critical  kind  must  indeed  be  costly  to  the  whole  community, 
often  endangering  health  and  even  life  itself,  but  the  workers 
are  almost  unanimous  in  believing  that  a  few  days  or  weeks 
of  this,  repeated  only  after  years  of  interval,  costs  far  less 
in  life  and  health  than  the  low  wages  paid  to  labor  year  after 
year  and  generation  after  generation.  They  demand  the 
right  to  strike  unhampered  by  any  government  in  which  capital- 
istic or  other  than  wage-earning  classes  predominate.  Only 
when  the  government  falls  into  the  hands  of  a  group  of  wholly 
non-capitalist  classes — of  which  wage  earners  form  the  major- 
ity —  will  they  expect  it  to  grant  such  rights  and  conditions 
as  are  sufficient  to  compensate  them  for  parting  with  any 
element  of  the  right  to  strike. 

The  great  British  strike,  then,  had  a  double  significance. 
It  showed  the  tremendously  increased  strength  of  labor 
when  every  class  of  workers  is  organized  and  all  are  united 
together,  and  it  showed  an  increasing  unwillingness  to  allow 
separate  agreements  to  stand  in  the  way  of  general  strikes. 

The  strength  of  the  strikers  in  the  British  upheaval  of  1911,  how- 
ever, has  been  grossly  exaggerated  on  both  sides.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  aggressive  action  came  from  the  masses  of  the  workers,  as 
their  leaders  held  them  back  in  nearly  every  instance.  There  is  no 
question  that  the  various  unions  cooperated  more  than  usual,  that 
vast  masses  of  the  unskilled  were  for  the  first  time  organized,  and 
that  these  features  won  the  strikes.  The  advance  was  remarkable 
—  but  we  can  only  measure  the  level  reached  if  we  realize  the  point 
from  which  the  start  was  made.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  unskilled 
labor  of  Great  Britain  until  1911  was  probably  worse  paid  and  less 
organized  than  that  of  any  great  manufacturing  country  —  and  the 
advance  made  by  no  means  brings  it  to  the  level  of  the  United  States. 

Since  the  great  dock  strike  of  1886,  led  by  John  Burns  and  Tom 
Mann,  unskilled  labor  has  tried  in  vain  to  organize  effectively  unions 
like  those  of  the  seamen  and  railway  servants,  the  majority  of  whose 
members  were  neither  of  the  least  skilled  nor  of  the  most  skilled 
classes,  had  an  uphill  fight,  and  were  only  able  to  organize  a  part  of 
the  workers.  Five  dollars  a  week  was  considered  such  a  high  and 
satisfactory  wage  by  the  wholly  unskilled  (dockers,  etc.)  that  it  was 


SYNDICALISM  365 

often  made  the  basis  of  their  demands.  The  Board  of  Trade  Report 
shows  that  400,000  railwaymen,  including  the  most  skilled,  had  from 
1899  to  1909  an  average  weekly  wage  varying  from  $6.35  to  $6.60 
per  week.  The  railway  union  found  that  of  a  quarter  of  a  million 
men  39  per  cent  got  less  than  $5  a  week,  and  89  per  cent  less  than 
$7.50.  Seamen  at  Liverpool  received  from  $20  to  $32.50  a  month. 

If  then  the  Liverpool  sailors  received  an  increase  of  $2.50  a  month, 
while  the  wages  of  other  strikers  were  raised  on  the  average  about 
20  per  cent,  what  must  we  conclude  ?  Undoubtedly  the  gain  was 
worth  all  the  labor  and  sacrifice  it  cost.  But  it  must  be  remembered, 
first,  that  these  wages  are  still  markedly  inferior  to  those  of  this 
country  in  spite  of  its  hordes  of  foreign  labor ;  and  second,  that  the 
increase  is  little  if  any  above  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  in  recent 
years,  and  will  undoubtedly  soon  be  overtaken  by  a  further  rise. 
The  great  steamship  lines  increased  their  rates  on  account  of  the 
strike  almost  the  same  week  that  it  was  concluded,  and  the  railway 
companies  gave  in  only  when  the  government  consented  that  they 
should  raise  their  rates.  But  the  larger  part  of  the  consumers  are 
workingmen,  and  their  cost  of  living  is  thus  rising  more  rapidly  than 
ever  on  account  of  the  strikes.  Finally,  the  unions  of  the  unskilled 
are  as  a  rule  not  yet  recognized  by  their  employers,  while  the  railway 
union  is  probably  as  completely  at  the  mercy  of  the  government  as 
ever. 

In  a  word,  the  point  reached  is  by  no  means  very  advanced ;  on  the 
other  hand,  the  material  gain  made  in  view  of  the  former  backwardness 
of  the  railwaymen,  seamen,  and  dockers  is  highly  important  for 
England,  while  the  methods  employed,  the  movement  having 
originated  from  below,  and  having  been  sustained  against  conserv- 
ative leaders  (only  a  few  radicals  like  Tom  Mannj  and  Ben  Tillett 
being  trusted),  is  of  world-wide  significance.  The  unions  as  well  as 
their  common  organizations,  the  Trade  Union  Congress,  the  Labour 
Party,  and  the  General  Federation  of  Trade  Unions  are  drawing 
closer  together,  while  the  Socialists  and  revolutionary  unionists  are 
everywhere  taking  the  lead — as  evidenced,  for  example,  by  the 
election  of  the  most  radical  Socialist  member  of  Parliament,  Mr. 
Will  Thorne,  to  be  President  of  the  1912  Trade  Union  Congress. 

The  success  of  the  new  movement  as  against  the  older  Labour 
Party  and  trade  union  tactics  may  also  be  seen  from  the  disturbed 
state  of  mind  of  the  older  leaders.  Take,  for  example,  the  attack 
of  the  Chairman  of  the  Labour  Party,  Mr.  J.  R.  MacDonald :  — 

"The  new  revolution  which  Syndicalism  and  its  advocates  of  the 
Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  contemplate  has  avoided  none  of 
the  errors  or  the  pitfalls  of  the  old,  but  it  has  added  to  them  a  whole 
series  of  its  own.  It  has  never  considered  the  problems  which  it  has 
to  meet.  It  is,  as  expressed  in  the  Outlook  of  this  month,  a  mere 
escapade  of  the  nursery  mind.  It  is  the  product  of  the  creative 
intelligence  of  the  man  who  is  impatient  because  it  takes  the  earth 
twenty-four  hours  to  wheel  around  the  sun  (sic).  .  .  .  The  hospi- 


366  SOCIALISM  AS   IT  IS 

tality  which  the  Socialist  movement  has  offered  so  generously  to  all 
kinds  of  cranks  and  scoundrels  because  they  professed  to  be  in  revolt 
against  the  existing  order  has  already  done  our  movement  much 
harm.  Let  it  not  add  Syndicalism  to  the  already  too  numerous 
vipers  which,  in  the  kindness  of  its  heart,  it  is  warming  on  its  hearth- 
stones." (5)  [See  note  at  end  of  chapter.] 

The  new  revolutionary  unionism  takes  different  forms  in 
Great  Britain,  France,  and  America.  In  France  it  has  ex- 
pressed itself  through  agitation  for  the  general  strike  and 
against  the  army,  the  only  thing  that  a  general  strike  move- 
ment has  to  fear.  The  agitation  has  completely  captured 
the  national  federation  of  unions,  has  a  well-developed  lit- 
erature, a  daily  paper  (La  Bataille  Syndicaliste  —  The  Union 
Battle,  —  established  in  1911),  and  has  put  its  principles  into 
effect  in  many  ways,  especially  by  more  numerous  and  wide- 
spread strikes  and  by  attacks  on  military  discipline.  But 
there  has  been  no  strike  so  nearly  general  as  the  recent 
British  one,  and  both  the  efforts  in  this  direction  and  those 
directed  against  the  army  have  a  future  rather  than  a  present 
importance  and  will  be  considered  in  succeeding  chapters 
(Part  III,  Chapters  VI  and  VII). 

In  America  the  new  movement  first  appeared  several  years 
ago  in  the  very  radical  proposal  indorsed  at  the  time  by 
Debs,  Haywood,  and  many  prominent  Socialists,  to  replace 
the  older  unions  by  a  new  set  built  on  entirely  different  prin- 
ciples, including  organizations  of  the  least  skilled,  and  the 
solid  union  of  all  unions  for  fighting  purposes.  This  move- 
ment took  concrete  form  in  a  new  organization,  the  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World,  which  was  launched  with  some  prom- 
ise, but  soon  divided  into  factions  and  was  abandoned  by 
Debs  and  others  of  its  organizers.  It  has  grown  in  strength 
in  some  localities,  having  conducted  the  remarkable  struggles 
at  McKees  Rocks  (Pa.)  and  Lawrence  (Mass.),  but  is  not  at 
present  a  national  factor  —  which  is  in  part  due,  perhaps,  to 
the  fact  that  the  older  unions  are  tending,  though  gradually, 
towards  somewhat  similar  principles. 

Not  only  is  Socialism  spreading  rapidly  in  all  the  unions, 
but  along  with  it  is  spreading  this  new  unionism.  For  many 
years  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners,  famous  as  the 
central  figure  in  all  the  labor  wars  in  the  Rocky  Mountain 
States,  was  the  most  powerful  union  in  this  country  that  was 
representative  both  of  revolutionary  Socialism  and  of  revo- 
lutionary unionism.  But  it  was  not  a  part  of  the  American 


SYNDICALISM  367 

Federation  of  Labor.  When  it  became  closely  united  with 
the  Coal  Miners,  and  the  latter  union  forced  its  admission 
into  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  (in  1911),  it  at  once 
began  a  campaign  for  its  principles  inside  this  organization. 
It  now  stands  for  two  proposals,  the  first  of  which  would 
solidly  unite  all  the  unions,  and  the  second  of  which  would 
cut  all  bonds  between  labor  and  capital.  Neither  is  likely 
to  be  adopted  this  year,  but  both  seem  sure  of  a  growing 
popularity  and  will  in  all  probability  result  in  some  radical 
and  effective  action  within  a  very  few  years. 

In  its  Convention  of  July,  1911,  the  Western  Federation 
of  Miners  decided  to  demand  of  the  Federation  of  Labor  the 
free  exchange  of  membership  cards  among  all  its  constituent 
unions.  Thus  the  unions  would  preserve  their  autonomy, 
but  every  member  would  be  free,  when  he  changed  his  em- 
ployer, to  pass  from  one  to  the  other  without  cost.  The 
result  would  be  that  quarrels  between  the  unions  over  mem- 
bers would  lessen  automatically,  and  also  admission  fees,  dues, 
and  benefits  would  tend  towards  a  level.  Thus  all  the  things 
that  keep  the  unions  apart  and  prevent  common  action 
against  the  employer  would  be  gradually  removed,  and  the 
tendency  of  certain  unions  to  ignore  the  interests  of  others 
reduced  to  a  minimum.  The  plan  is  practical,  because  it 
has  already  been  hi  successful  operation  for  many  years  in 
France. 

Another  new  policy  —  which  should  be  regarded  as  a 
supplementary  means  for  bringing  about  the  same  result 
-would  be  to  so  strengthen  and  democratize  the  general 
Federation  as  to  allow  great  power  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of 
the  executive,  and  at  the  same  time  subject  it  to  the 
direct  control  of  the  combined  rank  and  file  of  all  the 
unions.  If,  for  example,  national  Federation  officials  were 
elected,  instructed,  and  recalled  by  a  vote  of  all  the 
unionists  in  the  country,  the  latter  would  probably  be 
willing  to  place  in  the  hands  of  such  an  executive  power  to 
call  out  the  unions  in  strike  in  such  combinations  as  would 
make  the  resistance  of  employers  most  difficult,  and  power 
to  control  national  strike  funds  collected  from  all  the  unions 
for  these  contests.  Unions  with  a  specially  strong  strategic 
situation  in  industry  and  a  favored  situation  in  the  Federa- 
tion are  not  yet  ready  to  forego  their  privileges  for  this  form 
of  direct  democracy,  but  the  tendency  is  in  this  direction. 
(Since  these  lines  were  first  written  the  Federation  has  taken 


368  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

steps  towards  the  adoption  of  this  plan  of  direct  election  of 
its  officials  by  national  referendum.) 

Indeed,  when  the  Western  Miners'  second  proposal,  the 
refusal  to  sign  agreements  for  any  fixed  period,  is  adopted, 
this  simultaneous  centralization  and  democratization  of  the 
Federation  may  proceed  apace.  As  long  as  the  various  unions 
are  bound  to  the  employers  by  an  entirely  separate  and  inde- 
pendent agreement  terminable  at  different  dates,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  arrange  strikes 'in  common,  especially  when  the  more 
fortunate  unions  adopt  an  entirely  different  plan  of  organiza- 
tion and  an  entirely  different  policy  from  the  rest.  The 
Western  Miners  now  propose  that  all  agreements  be  done 
away  with,  a  practice  they  had  followed  long  and  success- 
fully themselves  —  with  the  single  tacit  exception  of  the 
employees  of  the  Smelter  Trust  (Guggenheim's).  This 
exception  they  have  now  done  away  with.  Their  fundamen- 
tal idea  is  that  as  long  as  the  capitalist  reserves  his  right 
to  close  down  his  works  whenever  he  believes  his  interests 
or  those  of  capital  require  it,  every  union  should  reserve  its 
right  to  stop  work  at  any  moment  when  the  interests  of 
the  union  or  of  labor  require  it.  Temporary  arrangements 
are  entered  into  which  are  binding  as  to  all  other  matters 
except  the  cessation  of  work.  That  this  cessation  would  not 
occur  in  any  well-organized  union  over  trifles  goes  without 
saying  —  strikes  are  tremendously  costly  to  labor.  The 
agreement  binds  in  a  way  perfectly  familiar  to  the  business 
world  in  the  call  loan  or  the  tenancy  at  will. 

President  Moyer  of  the  Western  Federation  (one  of  those 
Mr.  Roosevelt  called  an  "undesirable  citizen"  at  the  time 
when  he  was  on  trial  in  Idaho,  accused  of  being  an  accomplice 
in  the  murder  of  Governor  Steunenburg)  explained  that  his 
union  knew  that  agreements  might  bring  certain  momentary 
advantages  which  it  would  otherwise  lose,  that  it  had  often 
been  in  a  position  to  win  higher  wages  through  an  agreement, 
and  in  three  cases  even  to  gain  a  seven-hour  day.  But  by 
such  action,  he  declared  the  union  would  have  surrendered 
its  freedom.  It  would  have  been  tied  hand  and  foot,  whereas 
now  it  was  free  to  fight  whenever  it  wanted  to.  If  working 
people  want  to  be  united  and  effective,  he  concluded,  they 
must  have  the  fullest  freedom  of  action.  This  would  always 
pay  hi  the  end. 

In  view  of  the  great  advance  in  the  organization  and  fight- 
ing spirit  of  labor  secured  by  this  new  kind  of  industrial  war- 


SYNDICALISM  .  369 

fare,  some  revolutionary  unionists  even  expect  it  to  do  more 
to  bring  about  Socialism  than  the  Socialist  parties  them- 
selves. Indeed,  a  few  have  gone  so  far  as  to  regard  these 
parties  as  almost  superfluous.  Many  of  the  new  revolution- 
ary unionists,  though  Socialists  by  conviction,  attach  so  little 
importance  ,to  political  action  that  they  have  formed  no  con- 
nection with  the  Socialist  parties,  and  do  not  propose  to  do 
so.  Others  feel  the  necessity  of  some  political  support,  and 
contend  that  any  kind  of  an  exclusively  labor  union  party, 
even  if  it  represents  anti-revolutionary  unions  like  most  of 
those  of  the  Federation  of  Labor,  would  serve  this  purpose 
better  than  the  Socialist  Party,  which  belongs  less  exclusively 
to  the  unionists. 

An  American  revolutionary  unionist  and  Socialist,  the 
late  Louis  Duchez,  like  many  of  his  school,  not  only  placed 
his  faith  chiefly  in  the  unskilled  workers,  either  excluding  the 
skilled  manual  laborers  and  the  brain  workers,  or  relegating 
them  to  a  secondary  position,  but  wanted  the  new  organiza- 
tions to  rely  almost  entirely  on  their  economic  efforts  and 
entirely  to  subordinate  political  action.  The  hours  of  labor 
are  to  be  reduced,  child  labor  is  to  be  abolished,  and  every- 
thing is  to  be  done  that  will  tend  to  dimmish  competition 
between  one  workingman  and  another,  he  argued,  with  the 
idea  of  securing  early  control  of  the  labor  market.  Through 
labor's  restriction  of  output,  production  is  to  be  cut  down  and 
the  unemployed  are  to  be  absorbed.  Thus,  he  declared,  "a 
partial  expropriation  of  capital  is  taking  place"  and  "this  con- 
structive program  is  followed  until  the  workers  get  all  they 
produce."  (6) 

Here  is  an  invaluable  insight  into  the  underlying  stand- 
point of  some  of  these  anti-political  "syndicalists,"  to  use 
a  term  that  has  come  to  us  from  France.  Nothing  could 
possibly  be  more  alien  to  the  whole  spirit  of  revolutionary 
Socialism  than  these  conclusions.  The  very  reason  for  the 
existence  of  Socialism  is  that  Socialists  believe  that  the  unions 
cannot  control  the  labor  market  in  present  society.  The 
Socialists'  chief  hope,  moreover,  is  that  economic  evolution 
will  make  possible  and  almost  inevitable  the  transformation 
of  a  capitalist  into  a  Socialist  society;  it  is  then  to  their 
interest  not  to  retard  the  development  of  industry  by  the 
restriction  of  output,  but  to  advance  it.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Duchez's  philosophy  is  not  that  of  Socialist  labor  unionism, 
but  of  anarchist  labor  unionism,  and  there  have  been  strong 

2B 


370  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

tendencies  in  many  countries,  not  only  in  France  and  Italy, 
but  also  in  the  United  States,  especially  among  the  more 
conservative  unions,  to  be  guided  by  such  a  policy.  It  is  the 
essence  of  Mr.  Gompers's  program,  as  I  have  shown,  to  claim 
that  "a  partial  expropriation  of  capital"  is  taking  place 
through  the  unions,  and  that  by  this  means,  without  any 
government  action,  and  without  any  revolutionary  general  strike 
the  workers  will  gradually  "get  all  they  produce."  Accord- 
ing to  the  Socialist  view,  such  a  gradual  expropriation  can 
only  begin  after  a  political  and  economic  revolution,  or  when, 
on  its  near  approach,  capitalists  prefer  to  make  vital  conces- 
sions rather  than  to  engage  in  such  a  conflict. 

The  leading  Socialist  monthly  in  America,  the  International 
Socialist  Review,  which  has  indorsed  the  new  unionism,  has 
even  found  it  necessary  recently  to  remind  its  readers  that 
the  Socialist  Party  does  after  all  play  a  certain  role  and  a 
more  or  less  important  one,  in  the  revolutionary  movement. 
"Representative  revolutionary  unionists,  like  Lagardelle  of 
France  and  Tom  Mann  of  Australia,"  said  the  Review, 
"point  out  the  immense  value  of  a  political  party  as  an 
auxiliary  to  the  unions.  A  revolutionary  union  without 
the  backing  of  a  revolutionary  party  will  be  tied  up  by  in- 
junctions. Its  officers  will  be  kidnapped.  Its  members,  if 
they  defy  the  courts,  will  be  corralled  in  bull  pens  or  mowed 
down  by  Gatling  guns. 

"A  revolutionary  party,  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  phis  its 
hopes  mainly  to  the  passing  of  laws,  tends  always  to  degen- 
erate into  a  reform  party.  Its  'leaders'  become  hungry  for 
office  and  eager  for  votes,  even  if  the  votes  must  be  secured 
by  concessions  to  the  middle  class.  In  the  pursuit  of  such 
votes  it  wastes  its  propaganda  on  immediate  demands." 

The  Review  adds,  however,  that  a  non-political  menace  of 
revolution  does  ten  times  as  much  for  reforms  as  any  politi- 
cal activity;  which  can  only  mean  that  in  its  estimation 
revolutionary  strikes,  boycotts,  demonstrations,  etc.,  are 
of  ten  times  higher  present  value  than  the  ballot. 

Mr.  Tom  Mann  seems  also  to  subordinate  political  to  labor 
union  action:  "Experience  in  all  countries  shows  most 
conclusively  that  industrial  organization,  intelligently  con- 
ducted, is  of  much  more  moment  than  political  action,  for, 
entirely  irrespective  as  to  which  school  of  politicians  is  hi 
power,  capable  and  courageous  industrial  activity  forces 
from  the  politicians  proportionate  concessions.  .  .  .  Indeed, 


SYNDICALISM  371 

it  is  obvious  that  a  growing  proportion  of  the  intelligent 
pioneers  of  economic  changes  are  expressing  more  and  more 
dissatisfaction  with  Parliament  and  all  its  works,  and  look 
forward  to  the  time  when  Parliaments,  as  we  know  them,  will 
be  superseded  by  the  people  managing  their  own  affairs 
by  means  of  the  Initiative  and  the  Referendum."  (7)  The 
last  sentence  shows  that  Mr.  Mann  had  somewhat  modified 
his  aversion  to  politics,  for  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  is  a 
political  and  not  an  economic  device.  His  objection  to  poli- 
tics in  the  form  of  parliamentarism  (that  is,  trusting  every- 
thing to  elected  persons,  or  representatives)  as  distinguished 
from  direct  democracy,  would  probably  meet  the  views  of  the 
majority  of  Socialists  everywhere  (except  in  Great  Britain). 

A  later  declaration  of  Mr.  Mann  after  his  return  from  Aus- 
tralia to  England  shows  that  he  now  occupies  the  same  ground 
as  Debs  and  Haywood  in  America  —  favoring  a  revolutionary 
party  as  well  as  revolutionary  unions :  — 

"The  present-day  degradation  of  so  large  a  percentage  of  the 
workers  is  directly  due  to  their  economic  enslavement;  and  it  is 
economic  freedom  that  is  demanded. 

"Now  Parliamentary  action  is  at  all  times  useful,  in  proportion 
as  it  makes  for  economic  emancipation  of  the  workers.  But  Social- 
ists and  Labour  men  in  Parliament  can  only  do  effective  work  there 
in  proportion  to  the  intelligence  and  economic  organization  of  the 
rank  and  file.  .  .  . 

"Certainly  nothing  very  striking  in  the  way  of  constructive  work 
could  reasonably  be  expected  from  the  minorities  of  the  Socialists 
and  Labour  men  hitherto  elected.  But  the  most  moderate  and 
fair-minded  are  compelled  to  declare  that,  not  in  one  country  but 
in  all,  a  proportion  of  those  comrades  who,  prior  to  being  returned, 
were  unquestionably  revolutionary,  are  no  longer  so  after  a  few  years 
in  Parliament.  They  are  revolutionary  neither  in  their  attitude 
towards  existing  society  nor  in  respect  of  present-day  institutions. 
Indeed,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  many  seem  to  have  con- 
stituted themselves  apologists  for  existing  society,  showing  a  degree 
of  studied  respect  for  bourgeois  conditions,  and  a  toleration  of 
bourgeois  methods,  that  destroys  the  probability  of  their  doing  any 
real  work  of  a  revolutionary  character. 

"I  shall  not  here  attempt  to  juggle  with  the  quibble  of  'Revolu- 
tion or  Evolution/  —  or  to  meet  the  contention  of  some  of  those 
under  consideration  that  it  is  not  Revolution  that  is  wanted.  'You 
cannot  change  the  world  and  yet  not  change  the  world.'  Revolution 
is  the  means  of,  not  the  alternative  to,  Evolution.  I  simply  state  that 
a  working-class  movement  that  is  not  revolutionary  in  character, 
is  not  of  the  slightest  use  to  the  working  class."  (8) 


372  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

If  Mr.  Mann  later  resigned  from  the  British  Social  Demo- 
cratic Party,  this  was  in  part  due  to  the  special  conditions 
in  Great  Britain,  as  he  said  at  the  time,  and  partly  to  his 
Australian  experience  of  the  demoralizing  effects  of  office 
seeking  on  the  Labour  Party  there.  Mann  stands  with 
Herve  in  the  French  Party  and  Debs  and  Haywood  in  the 
American.  The  reasons  given  for  his  withdrawal  from  the 
British  Party  embody  the  universal  complaint  of  revolution- 
ary unionists  against  what  is  everywhere  a  strong  tendency 
of  Socialist  parties  to  become  demoralized  like  other  political 
organizations.  Mr.  Mann,  in  his  letter  of  resignation, 
said :  — 

"After  the  most  careful  reflection  I  am  driven  to  the  belief  that 
the  real  reason  why  the  trade  unionist  movement  of  this  country  is 
in  such  a  deplorable  state  of  inefficiency  is  to  be  found  in  the  fictitious 
importance  which  the  workers  have  been  encouraged  to  attach  to 
parliamentary  action. 

"  I  find  nearly  all  the  serious-minded  young  men  in  the  Labour  and 
Socialist  movement  have  their  minds  centered  upon  obtaining  some 
position  in  public  life,  such  as  local,  municipal,  or  county  councilor- 
ship,  or  filling  some  governmental  office,  or  aspiring  to  become  a 
member  of  Parliament. 

"I  am  driven  to  the  belief  that  this  is  entirely  wrong,  and  that 
economic  liberty  will  never  be  realized  by  such  means.  So  I  declare 
in  favor  of  Direct  Industrial  Organization,  not  as  a  means  but  as  the 
means  whereby  the  workers  can  ultimately  overthrow  the  capitalist 
system  and  become  the  actual  controllers  of  their  own  industrial  and 
social  destiny." 

There  is  little  disagreement  among  Socialists  that  "Direct 
Industrial  Organization"  is  likely  to  prove  the  most  impor- 
tant means  by  which  "the  workers  can  ultimately  over- 
throw the  capitalist  system."  This,  the  "industrial  union- 
ism" of  Debs  and  Haywood  and  Mann,  is  to  be  sharply 
distinguished  from  French  "syndicalism"  which  undermines 
all  Socialist  political  action  and  all  revolutionary  economic 
action  as  well,  by  teaching  that  even  to-day  by  direct  indus- 
trial organization  —  without  a  political  program  or  political 
support,  and  without  a  revolution  —  "a  partial  expropriation 
of  capital  is  taking  place." 

The  advocates  of  revolutionary  labor  unionism  in  America 
for  the  most  part  are  not  allowing  the  new  idea  to  draw  away 
their  energies  from  the  Socialist  Party;  it  merely  serves  to 
emphasize  their  hostility  to  the  present  unaggressive  policy 


SYNDICALISM  373 

of  the  Executive  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  some  of 
the  unions  that  compose  it. 

Mr.  Haywood  (another  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  "undesirable 
citizens")  urges  the  working  class  to  " become  so  organized 
on  the  economic  field  that  they  can  take  and  hold  the  indus- 
tries in  which  they  are  employed."  This  view  might  seem 
to  obviate  the  need  of  a  political  party,  but  Mr.  Haywood 
does  not  regard  it  in  that  light.  He  says :  — 

"There  is  justification  for  political  action,  and  that  is,  to  control 
the  forces  of  the  capitalists  that  they  use  against  us ;  to  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  control  the  power  of  government  so  as  to  make  the  work  of 
the  army  ineffective.  .  .  .  That  is  the  reason  that  you  want  the 
power  of  government.  That  is  the  reason  that  you  should  fully 
understand  the  power  of  the  ballot. 

"Now,  there  isn't  any  one,  Socialist,  S.L.P.,  Industrial  Worker, 
or  any  other  working  man  or  woman,  no  matter  what  society  you 
belong  to,  but  what  believes  in  the  ballot.  There  are  those  —  and 
I  am  one  of  them  —  who  refuse  to  have  the  ballot  interpreted  for 
them.  I  know  or  think  I  know  the  power  of  it,  and  I  know  that  the 
industrial  organization,  as  I  have  stated  in  the  beginning,  is  its 
broadest  interpretation.  I  know,  too,  that  when  the  workers  are 
brought  together  in  a  great  organization  they  are  not  going  to  cease 
to  vote.  That  is  when  the  workers  will  begin  to  vote,  to  vote  for 
directors  to  operate  the  industries  in  which  they  are  all  employed." 

In  the  recent  pamphlet,  "Industrial  Socialism,"  Mr.  Hay- 
wood  and  Mr.  Frank  Bohn  develop  the  new  unionism  at 
greater  length.  Their  conclusions  as  to  politics  are  directed, 
not  against  the  Socialist  Party,  but  against  its  non-revolu- 
tionary elements :  — 

"The  Socialist  Party  stands  not  merely  for  the  POLITICAL 
supremacy  of  labor.  It  stands  for  the  INDUSTRIAL  supremacy 
of  labor.  Its  purpose  is  not  to  secure  old  age  pensions  and  free  meals 
for  school  children.  Its  mission  is  to  help  overthrow  capitalism 
and  establish  Socialism. 

"The  great  purpose  of  the  Socialist  Party  is  to  seize  the  powers 
of  government  and  thus  prevent  them  from  being  used  by  the  capital- 
ists against  the  workers.  With  Socialists  in  political  offices  the 
workers  can  strike  and  not  be  shot.  They  can  picket  shops  and  not 
be  arrested  and  imprisoned.  ...  To  win  the  demands  made  on  the 
industrial  field  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  control  the  government, 
as  experience  shows  strikes  to  have  been  lost  through  the  inter- 
ference of  courts  and  militia.  The  same  functions  of  government, 
controlled  by  a  class  conscious  working  class,  will  be  used  to  inspire 


374  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

confidence  and  compel  the  wheels  of  industry  to  move  in  spite  of  the 
devices  and  stumblingblocks  of  the  capitalists.  .  .  . 

"Socialist  government  will  concern  itself  entirely  with  the  shop. 
Socialism  can  demand  nothing  of  the  individual  outside  the  shop. 
...  It  has  no  concern  with  the  numberless  social  reforms  which 
the  capitalists  are  now  preaching  in  order  to  save  their  miserable 
profit  system. 

"Old  age  pensions  are  not  Socialism.  The  workers  had  much 
better  fight  for  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours.  Old  age  pensions 
under  the  present  government  are  either  charity  doled  out  to  paupers, 
or  bribes  given  to  voters  by  politicians.  Self-respecting  workers 
despise  such  means  of  support.  Free  meals  or  cent  meals  for  poverty- 
stricken  school  children  are  not  Socialism.  Industrial  freedom  will 
enable  parents  to  give  their  children  solid  food  at  home.  Free  food 
to  the  workers  cuts  wages  and  kills  the  fighting  spirit." 

The  American  "syndicalists"  are  not  opposed  to  political 
action,  but  they  want  to  use  it  exclusively  for  the  purposes 
of  industrial  democracy. 

While  Messrs.  Haywood  and  Bohn  by  no  means  take  an 
anarchistic  position,  they  show  no  enthusiasm  for  the  capital- 
ist-collectivist  proposals  that  present  governments  should 
take  control  of  industry.  They  are  not  hostile  to  all  govern- 
ment, but  they  think  that  democracy  applied  directly  to  in- 
dustry would  be  all  the  government  required :  — 

"In  the  shop  there  must  be  government.  In  the  school  there 
must  be  government.  In  the  conduct  of  the  great  public  services 
there  must  be  government.  We  have  shown  that  Socialism  will 
make  government  democratic  throughout.  The  basis  of  this  free- 
dom will  be  the  freedom  of  the  individual  to  develop  his  powers. 
People  will  be  educated  in  freedom.  They  will  work  in  freedom. 
They  will  live  in  freedom.  .  .  . 

"Socialism  will  establish  democracy  in  the  shop.  Democracy 
in  the  shop  will  free  the  working  class.  The  working  class,  through 
securing  freedom  for  itself,  will  liberate  the  race." 

•  Even  the  American  "  syndicalists,"  however,  attach  more 
importance  to  economic  than  to  political  action.  Hitherto 
revolutionary  Socialists  have  agreed  that  the  only  construc- 
tive work  possible  under  capitalism  was  that  of  education  and 
organization.  The  "  syndicalists "  also  agree  that  nothing 
peculiarly  socialistic  can  be  done  to-day  by  political  action, 
but  they  are  reformists  as  to  the  immediate  possibilities  of 
economic  action.  Here  they  believe  revolutionary  principles 
can  be  applied  even  under  capitalism.  Even  the  conserva- 


SYNDICALISM  375 

live  and  purely  businesslike  effort  to  secure  a  little  more 
wages  by;  organized  action,  they  believe,  can  be  converted 
here  and  now  into  a  class  struggle  of  working  class  vs.  capi- 
talists. What  is  needed  is  only  organization  of  all  the  unions 
and  a  revolutionary  policy.  With  the  possibilities  of  a  revo- 
lutionary union  policy  when  capitalism  has  largely  exhausted 
its  program  of  political  reforms  and  economic  betterment  and 
when  Socialism  has  become  the  political  Opposition,  I  deal  in 
following  chapters.  But  syndicalists,  even  in  America,  say 
revolutionary  tactics  can  be  applied  now  —  Mr.  Haywood, 
for  instance,  feels  that  the  only  thing  necessary  for  a  suc- 
cessful revolutionary  and  Socialistic  general  strike  in  France 
or  America  to-day,  is  sufficient  economic  organization. 

Mr.  Debs  admits  the  need  of  revolutionary  tactics  as  well 
as  revolutionary  principles  and  even  says :  "  We  could  better 
succeed  with  reactionary  principles  and  revolutionary  tactics 
than  with  revolutionary  principles  and  reactionary  tactics." 
He  admits  also  that  Socialists  and  revolutionary  unionists  are 
inspired  with  an  entirely  new  attitude  towards  society  and 
government  and  indorses  as  entirely  sound  certain  expres- 
sions from  Haywood  and  Bonn's  pamphlet  which  had  been 
violently  attacked  by  reformist  Socialists  and  conservative 
unionists.  Mr.  Debs  agrees  with  the  former  writers  in  their 
definition  of  the  attitude  of  the  Socialist  revolutionist's  atti- 
tude towards  property:  "He  retains  absolutely  no  respect 
for  the  property  '  rights '  of  the  profit  takers.  He  will  use 
any  weapon  which  will  win  his  fight.  He  knows  that  the 
present  laws  of  property  are  made  by  and  for  the  capitalists. 
Therefore  he  does  not  hesitate  to  break  them."  But  he 
does  not  agree  that  this  new  spirit  offers  any  positive  contri- 
bution to  Socialist  tactics  at  the  present  time.  Just  as  Herve" 
has  recently  admitted  that  the  superior  political  and  eco- 
nomic organization  of  the  Germans  were  more  important 
than  all  the  " sabotage "  (violence)  and  "direct  action"  of 
the  French  though  he  still  favors  the  latter  policies,  so  the 
foremost  American  revolutionary  opposes  "direct  action" 
and  "sabotage"  altogether  under  present  conditions.  Both 
deny  that  revolutionary  economic  action  under  capitalism  is 
any  more  promising  than  revolutionary  political  action.  Even 
nerve*  defends  his  more  or  less  friendly  attitude  to  "direct 
action"  wholly  on  the  ground  that  it  is  good  practice  for  rev- 
olution, not  on  Lagardelle's  syndicalist  ground  that  it  means 
the  beginning  of  revolution  itself  (see  below). 


376  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

By  much  of  their  language  Haywood  and  several  industrial 
unionists  of  this  country  would  seem  to  class  themselves 
rather  with  Lagardeile  and  Labriola  (see  below)  than  with 
nerve",  Debs,  and  Mann.  Haywood,  for  example,  has  said 
that  no  Socialist  can  be  a  law-abiding  citizen.  Haywood's 
very  effective  and  law-abiding  leadership  in  strikes  at  Law- 
rence (1912)  and  elsewhere  would  suggest  that  he  meant  that 
Socialists  cannot  be  law-abiding  by  principle  and  under  all 
circumstances.  But  this  statement  as  it  was  made,  together 
with  many  others,  justifies  the  above  classification.  Debs,  on 
the  contrary,  claims  that  the  American  workers  are  law- 
abiding  and  must  remain  so,  on  the  whole,  until  the  time  of 
the  revolution  approaches.  "  As  a  revolutionist,"  he  writes, 
"  I  can  have  no  respect  for  capitalist  property  laws,  nor 
the  least  scruple  about  violating  them,"  but  Debs  does 
not  believe  there  can  be  any  occasion  to  put  this  principle 
into  effect  until  the  workers  have  been  politically  and  eco- 
nomically organized  and  educated,  and  then  only  if  they  are 
opposed  by  violence  (see  the  International  Socialist  Review, 
February,  1912). 

The  French  and  Italian  advocates  of  revolutionary  union- 
ism also  assign  to  the  party  a  very  secondary  part,  though  they 
are  by  no  means,  like  the  anarchists,  opposed  to  all  political 
action.  They  do  not  as  a  rule  oppose  the  Socialist  parties, 
but  they  protest  against  the  view  that  Socialist  activities 
should  be  chiefly  political.  Their  best-known  spokesman  in 
Italy,  Arturo  Labriola,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  orators  in 
the  country,  and  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Naples, 
writes :  — 

"The  Social  Democracy  will  prove  to  have  been  the  last  capitalis- 
tic party  to  which  the  defense  of  capitalistic  society  will  have  been 
intrusted.  The  syndicalists  [revolutionary  unionists]  ought  to 
get  that  firmly  into  their  heads  and  draw  conclusions  from  it  in  their 
necessary  relations  with  the  official  Socialist  Party.  The  latter  ought 
to  resign  itself  to  being  no  more  than  a  simple  party  of  the  legal  demands 
of  the  proletariat  [i.e.  the  unions,]  on  the  basis  of  existing  society,  and 
not  an  anti-capitalist  party."  (9) 

This  is  strong  language  and  brings  up  some  large  questions. 
Far  from  being  displeased  with  the  moderate  and  non-rev- 
olutionary character  of  the  Socialist  Party,  Labriola,  him- 
self a  revolutionist,  is  so  indifferent  to  the  party  as  a  direct 
means  to  revolution,  as  to  hope  that  it  will  drop  its  revolu- 


SYNDICALISM  377 

tionary  claims  altogether  and  become  a  humble  and  modest 
but  more  useful  tool  of  the  unions.  He  even  admitted  in 
conversation  with  the  writer  that,  attaching  no  value  to  polit- 
ical advance  as  such,  he  was  not  even  anxious  at  this  time 
that  the  illiterate  South  Italians  should  be  given  a  vote,  since 
they  would  long  remain  under  the  tutelage  of  the  Catholic 
Church. 

One  of  the  founders  of  the  present  French  movement,  its 
earliest  and  chief  theorist,  Pelloutier,  who  has  many  followers 
among  the  present  officials  of  the  French  Federation  of  Labor, 
went  even  further,  denying  to  the  government,  and  therefore 
to  all  political  parties,  any  vital  function  whatever.  To  Pel- 
loutier the  State  is  built  exclusively  upon  "superfluous  and 
obnoxious  political  interests."  The  unions  are  expected  to 
work  towards  a  Socialist  society  without  much,  if  any,  polit- 
ical support.  They  are  to  use  non-political  means:  "The 
general  strike  as  a  purely  economic  means  that  excludes  the 
cooperation  of  parliamentary  Socialists  and  demands  only 
labor  union  activity  would  necessarily  suit  the  labor  union 
groups."  (10) 

The  leading  "syndicalist"  writer  to-day,  Hubert  Lagardelle, 
feels  not  only  that  a  Socialist  Party  is  not  likely  to  bring  about 
a  Socialist  society,  but  that  any  steps  that  it  might  try  to  take 
in  this  direction  to-day  would  necessarily  be  along  the  wrong 
lines,  since  it  would  establish  reforms  by  law  rather  than  as 
a  natural  upgrowth  out  of  economic  conditions  and  the 
activities  of  labor  unions,  with  the  result  that  such  reforms 
would  necessarily  go  no  farther  than  "State  Socialism."  (11) 

Lagardelle  speaks  of  the  "State  Socialistic"  reform  tend- 
ency as  synonymous  with  "modern  democracy."  Because 
it  supposes  that  there  are  "general  problems  common  to  all 
classes,"  says  Lagardelle,  democracy  refuses  to  take  into 
account  the  real  difference  between  men,  which  is  that 
they  are  divided  into  economic  classes.  Here  we  see  the 
central  principle  of  Socialism  exaggerated  to  an  absurdity. 
Few  Socialists,  even  the  most  revolutionary,  would  deny  that 
there  are  some  problems  "common  to  all  classes."  Indeed, 
the  existence  and  importance  of  such  problems  is  the  very 
reason  why  "State  Socialism,"  of  benefit  to  the  masses,  but 
still  more  to  the  interest  of  the  capitalists,  is  being  so  easily 
and  rapidly  introduced.  Lagardelle  would  be  right,  from 
the  Socialist  standpoint,  if  he  demanded  that  it  should 
oppose  mere  political  democracy,  or  "State  Socialism"  in 


378  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

proportion  as  these  forces  have  succeeded  in  reorganizing 
the  capitalist  State  —  or  rather  after  they  have  been  assimi- 
lated by  it.  But  to  obstruct  their  present  work  is  merely 
to  stand  against  the  normal  and  necessary  course  of  economic 
and  political  evolution,  as  recognized  by  the  Socialists  them- 
selves, a  similar  mistake  to  that  made  by  the  Populists  and 
their  successors,  who  think  they  can  prevent  normal  economic 
evolution  by  dissolving  the  new  industrial  combinations  and 
returning  to  competition.  Just  as  Socialists  cannot  oppose 
the  formation  of  trusts  under  normal  circumstances,  neither 
can  they  oppose  the  extension  of  the  modern  State  into  the 
field  of  industry  or  democratic  reform,  even  though  the 
result  is  temporarily  to  strengthen  capitalism  and  to  decrease 
the  economic  and  political  power  of  the  working  people. 
One  of  the  fundamental  differences  between  the  Socialist  and 
other  political  philosophies  is  that  it  recognizes  ceaseless 
political  evolution  and  acts  accordingly.  It  teaches  that  we 
shall  probably  pass  on  to  social  democracy  through  a  period 
of  monopoly  rule,  "  State  Socialism,"  and  political  reforms 
that  in  themselves  promise  no  relative  advance,  economic  or 
political,  to  the  working  class. 

In  a  recent  congress  of  the  French  Party,  Jaures  protested 
against  a  statement  of  Lagardelle's  that  Socialism  was  op- 
posed to  democracy.  "Democracy,"  Lagardelle  answered, 
"corresponds  to  an  historical  movement  which  has  come  to 
an  end ;  syndicalism  is  an  anti-democratic  movement  to  the 
extent  that  it  is  post-democratic.  Syndicalism  comes  after 
democracy ;  it  perfects  the  life  which  democracy  was  power- 
less to  organize."  It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  Lagar- 
delle persists  in  saying  that  a  movement  which  thus  supple- 
ments democracy,  which  does  what  democracy  was  claiming 
to  do,  and  which  is  expected  to  supersede  it,  should  on  this 
account  be  considered  as  "anti-democratic."  Socialism 
fights  the  "State  Socialists"  and  opposes  those  whose  de- 
mocracy is  merely  political,  but  it  is  attacking  not  their 
democracy  or  their  "State  Socialism,"  but  their  capitalism. 

"Political  society,"  says  Lagardelle,  "being  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  coercive  power  of  the  State,  that  is  to  say,  of 
authority  and  the  hierarchy,  corresponds  to  an  economic 
regime  which  has  authority  and  the  hierarchy  as  its  base."  (12) 
This  proposition  (the  truth  of  which  all  Socialists  would  rec- 
ognize in  so  far  as  it  applies  to  political  society  in  its  present 
form)  seems  sufficient  to  Lagardelle  to  justify  his  conclusion 


SYNDICALISM  379 

that  we  can  no  more  expect  Socialist  results  through  the  State, 
than  we  could  by  association  with  capitalism.  He  does  not 
agree  with  the  Socialist  majority  that,  while  capitalism  em- 
bodies a  ruling  class  whose  services  may  be  dispensed  with, 
the  State  is  rather  a  machine  or  a  system  which  corresponds 
not  so  much  to  capitalism,  as  to  the  system  and  machinery 
of  industry  which  capitalism  controls. 

Another  and  closely  related  idea  of  the  syndicalists  is  that 
all  political  parties,  as  well  as  governments,  necessarily  be- 
come the  tools  of  their  leaders,  that  they  always  become 
"machines,"  bureaucratically  organized  like  governments. 
Lagardelle  adopts  Rousseau's  view  that  the  essence  of  rep- 
resentative government  (all  existing  governments  that  are 
not  autocratic  being  representative)  is  "the  inactivity  of  the 
citizen"  and  urges  that  political  parties,  like  society  in  general, 
are  divided  between  the  governing  and  the  governed.  While 
there  is  much  truth  in  this  analysis,  —  this  being  the  situation 
which  it  is  sought  to  correct  both  in  government  and  within 
political  parties  by  such  means  as  direct  legislation  and  the 
recall,  —  Lagardelle  does  not  seem  to  see  that  exactly  the  same 
problem  exists  also  in  the  labor  unions.  For  among  the 
most  revolutionary  as  among  the  most  conservative  of  labor 
organizations  the  leaders  tend  to  acquire  the  same  relative 
and  irresponsible  power  as  they  do  in  political  parties.  The 
difficulty  of  making  democracy  work  inheres  in  all  organiza- 
tions. It  must  be  met  and  overcome ;  it  cannot  be  avoided. 

Lagardelle's  distrust  of  political  democracy  goes  even 
further  than  a  mere  criticism  of  representative  government. 
He  thinks  the  citizen  to-day  unable  to  judge  general  political 
questions  at  all, —  so  that  in  his  view  even  direct  democracy 
would  be  useless.  It  is  for  this  reason,  he  says,  that  parties 
have  it  as  an  aim  to  act  and  to  think  in  the  citizen's  place. 
Lagardelle's  remedy  is  not  the  establishment  of  direct  de- 
mocracy in  government  or  in  parties,  but  the  organization 
of  the  people  to  act  together  on  "the  concrete  things  of  life"; 
that  is,  on  questions  of  hours,  wages,  and  other  conditions 
closely  associated  with  their  daily  life  and  in  his  view  adapted 
to  their  understanding.  He  does  not  seem  to  see  that  such 
questions  lead  almost  immediately,  not  only  to  such  larger 
issues  as  are  already  presented  by  the  leading  political 
parties,  but  also  to  the  still  larger  ones  proposed  by  the 
Socialists. 

Others  of  the  syndicalists'  criticisms,  if  taken  literally, 


380  SOCIALISM  AS   IT   IS 

would  undoubtedly  bring  them  in  the  end  to  the  position 
occupied  by  non-Socialist  and  anti-Socialist  labor  unionists. 
Lagardelle  frankly  places  labor  union  action  not  only  above 
political  action,  which  Socialists,  under  many  circumstances, 
may  justify,  but  above  Socialism  itself.  "Even  if  the 
dreams  of  the  future  of  syndicalistic  Socialism  should  never  be 
realized,  —  none  of  us  has  the  secret  of  history,  —  it  would 
suffice  for  me  to  give  it  my  full  support,  to  know  that  it  is  at 
the  moment  I  am  speaking  the  essential  agent  of  civilization 
in  the  world."  Here  is  a  labor  union  partisanship  which  is 
certainly  not  equaled  by  the  average  conservative  labor 
leader,  who  has  the  modesty  to  realize  that  there  are  other 
powerful  forces  making  for  progress  aside  from  the  move- 
ment to  which  he  happens  to  belong. 

The  syndicalists,  or  those  who  act  along  similar  lines  in 
other  countries,  have  brought  new  life  into  the  Socialist 
movement;  their  criticism  has  forced  it  to  consider  some 
neglected  questions,  and  has  contributed  new  ideas  which 
are  winning  acceptance.  The  basis  of  their  view  is  that  the 
working  people  cannot  win  by  mere  numbers  or  intelligence, 
but  must  have  a  practical  power  to  organize  along  radically 
new  lines  and  an  ability  to  create  new  social  institutions  in- 
dependently of  capitalist  opposition  or  aid. 

Lagardelle  writes:  "There  is  nothing  in  syndicalism  which  can 
recall  the  dogmatism  of  orthodox  Socialism.  The  latter  has  summed 
up  its  wisdom  in  certain  abstract  immovable  formulas  which  it 
intends  willy-nilly  to  impose  on  life.  .  .  .  Syndicalism,  on  the  con- 
trary, depends  on  the  continually  renewed  and  spontaneous  creations 
of  life  itself,  on  the  perpetual  renewing  of  ideas,  which  cannot  be- 
come fixed  into  dogmas  as  long  as  they  are  not  detached  from  their 
trunk.  We  are  not  dealing  with  a  body  of  intellectuals,  with  a 
Socialist  clergy  charged  to  think  for  the  working  class,  but  with  the 
working  class  itself,  which  through  its  own  experience  is  incessantly 
discovering  new  horizons,  unseen  perspectives,  unsuspected  methods, 
—  in  a  word,  new  sources  of  rejuvenation."  (13) 

Here,  at  least,  is  a  valuable  warning  to  Socialism  against 
what  its  most  revolutionary  and  enthusiastic  adherents  have 
always  felt  is  its  chief  danger. 

The  fact  that  lends  force  to  Lagardelle's  argument  is  that 
the  average  workingman  has  a  much  more  important,  neces- 
sary, and  continuous  function  to  fill  as  a  member  of  the  labor 
unions  than  as  a  member  of  the  Socialist  parties.  It  still 


SYNDICALISM  381 

remains  a  problem  of  the  first  magnitude  to  every  Socialist 
party  to  give  to  its  members  an  equally  powerful  daily  in- 
terest in  that  work.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  said  in 
all  fairness  that  the  lack  of  active  participation  by  the  rank 
and  file  is  very  common  in  the  labor  unions  also,  a  handful 
of  men  often  governing  and  directing,  sometimes  even  at 
the  most  critical  moments. 

It  is  the  boast  of  the  syndicalists  that  in  their  plan  of  rev- 
olutionary unionism,  practice  and  theory  become  one,  that 
actions  become  revolutionary  as  well  as  words  —  "Men 
are  classed,"  says  Lagardelle,  "according  to  their  acts  and 
not  according  to  their  labels.  The  revolutionary  spirit  comes 
down  from  heaven  onto  the  earth,  becomes  flesh,  manifests 
itself  by  institutions,  and  identifies  itself  with  life.  The  daily 
act  takes  on  a  revolutionary  value,  and  social  transformation, 
if  it  comes  some  day,  will  only  be  the  generalization  of  this 
act."  It  is  true  that  Lagardelle's  "direct  action"  tends  to- 
wards revolution,  but  does  it  tend  towards  Socialism  ?  His 
Answer  is  that  it  does.  But  his  answer  itself  indicates  the 
tendency  of  syndicalism  to  drift  back  into  conservative 
unionism  and  the  mere  demand  for  somewhat  more  wages. 
Socialist  organizations,  he  says,  "must  necessarily  be  trained 
in  actions  of  no  great  revolutionary  moment,  since  these  are 
the  only  kind  of  actions  now  possible,  and  in  agitation ;  that 
is,  the  conversion  or  the  wakening  of  the  will  of  the  working 
people  to  desire  and  to  demand  an  entirely  different  life, 
which  their  intelligence  has  shown  them  to  be  possible,  and 
which  they  feel  they  are  able  to  obtain  through  their 
organizations."  (14)  (My  italics.) 

Not  all  members  of  the  French  "  syndicats  "  (labor  unions) 
are  theoretical  syndicalists  of  the  dogmatic  kind,  like  La- 
gardelle. Yet  even  men  like  Guerard,  recently  head  of  the 
railway  union,  and  Niel  of  the  printers,  recently  secretary  of 
the  Federation  of  Labor,  both  belonging  to  the  less  radical 
faction,  are  in  favor  of  the  use  of  the  general  strike  under 
several  contingencies,  and  stand  for  a  union  policy  directed 
towards  the  ultimate  abolition  of  employers.  But  this 
does  not  mean  that  they  believe  the  unions  can  succeed  in 
either  of  these  efforts  if  acting  alone,  or  even  if  assisted  in 
Parliament  by  a  party  which  represents  only  the  unions,  acts 
as  their  tool,  and  therefore  brings  them  no  outside  assistance. 
Such  men,  together  with  others  more  radical,  like  Andre" 
and  the  Guesdists  in  the  Federation,  realize  that  a  larger  and 


382  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

more  democratic  movement  is  needed  in  connection  with  the 
unions  before  there  is  any  possibility  of  accomplishing  the 
great  social  changes  at  which,  as  Socialists,  they  aim.  (As 
evidence,  see  the  proceedings  of  any  recent  convention  of  the 
Confederation  Generale  de  Travail.) 

Lagardelle,  however,  is  a  member  of  the  Socialist  Party  and 
was  recently  even  a  candidate  for  the  French  Chamber  of  Dep- 
uties. Other  prominent  members  of  the  Party  as  revolution- 
ary as  he  and  as  enthusiastic  partisans  of  the  Confederation 
de  Travail  (Federation  of  Labor)  are  stronger  in  their  allegi- 
ance to  the  Party.  And  there  are  signs  that  even  in  France 
syndicalism  is  losing  its  anti-political  tendency.  Herve,  who 
demanded  at  the  beginning  of  1909  that  the  "directors  of  the 
Socialist  Party  cure  themselves  of  'Parliamentary  idiocy" 
(his  New  Year's  wish),  expressed  at  the  beginning  of  1910  the 
wish  that  "certain  of  the  dignitaries  of  the  Federation  of 
Labor  should  cure  themselves  of  a  syndicalist  and  laborite 
idiocy,  a  form  of  idiocy  not  less  dangerous  or  clownish  than 
the  other." 

In  fact,  it  may  soon  be  necessary  to  distinguish  a  new 
school  of  political  syndicalism,  which  is  well  represented  by 
Paul  Louis  in  his  "Syndicalism  against  the  State"  (Le  Syn- 
dicalisme  centre  1'Etat). 

"Syndicalism  is  at  the  bottom,"  says  Louis,  "only  a  powerful 
expression  of  that  destructive  and  constructive  effort  which  for  years 
has  been  shaking  the  old  political  and  social  regime,  and  is  under- 
mining slowly  the  ancient  system  of  property.  It  points  necessarily 
to  collectivism  and  communism.  It  represents  Socialism  in  action, 
in  daily  and  continuous  action.  .  .  . 

"Now  the  abolition  of  the  State  ...  is  the  object  of  modern 
Socialism.  What  distinguishes  this  modern  Socialism  from  Utopian 
Socialism  which  culminated  towards  1848,  whose  best-known  publi- 
cists were  Cabet,  Pecqueur,  Louis  Blanc,  Vidal,  is  precisely  that  it  no 
longer  attributes  to  the  State  the  power  to  transform,  the  capacity 
to  revolutionize,  the  role  of  magic  regeneration,  which  the  writers 
in  this  dangerous  phase  of  enthusiasm  assigned  to  it.  For  the  Uto- 
pians all  the  machinery  of  a  bureaucracy  could  be  put  at  the  service 
of  all  the  classes,  fraternally  reconciled  in  view  of  the  coming  social 
regeneration.  For  contemporary  Socialists  since  Karl  Marx  .  .  . 
this  bureaucratic  machinery,  whose  function  is  to  protect  the  exist- 
ing system  and  to  maintain  an  administrative,  economic,  financial, 
political,  and  military  guardianship  must  finally  be  disintegrated. 
The  new  society  can  only  be  born  at  this  price. 

"There  still  exist  in  all  countries  groups  of  men  or  isolated  in- 


SYNDICALISM  383 

dividuals  who  stand  for  collectivism,  who  claim  to  want  the  com- 
plete emancipation  of  all  workers,  but  who  nevertheless  adhere  to 
paternalism.  These  are  called  revisionists  in  Germany,  reformists 
in  France,  Italy,  and  Switzerland.  .  .  .  They  go  back,  without 
knowing  it,  to  those  theories  of  enlightened  despotism  which  flourished 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  the  courts  of  Vienna,  St. 
Petersburg,  Madrid  and  Lisbon,  the  ridiculous  inanity  of  which  was 
sufficiently  well  demonstrated  by  events.  .  .  . 

"But  these  Utopians  of  the  present  moment,  these  champions 
of  a  limitless  adaptation  to  circumstances,  are  destined  to  lose 
ground  more  and  more,  according  as  Syndicalism  expresses  better 
and  better  the  independent  action  of  the  organized  proletariat. 

"  In  its  totality  the  Socialism  of  the  world  is  as  anti-governmental 
as  Syndicalism,  and  in  this  is  shown  the  identity  of  the  two  move- 
ments, for  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  the  field  of  action  of  the  one 
from  that  of  the  other."  (15) 

We  see  here  that  the  central  idea  of  syndicalism,  which  is 
undoubtedly,  as  Louis  says,  a  revolutionary  action  against 
existing  governments,  is  not  on  this  account  anti-political ; 
the  foundation  of  this  point  of  view  is  that  labor  union  action 
is  bound  sooner  or  later  to  evolve  into  syndicalism,  which 
in  its  essence  is  an  effort  to  put  industry  in  the  immediate 
control  of  the  non-propertied  working  classes,  without  regard 
to  the  attitude  taken  towards  this  movement  by  govern- 
ments:— 

"Those  who  have  long  imagined  that  some  kind  of  coordination 
would  be  brought  about  between  old  economic  and  social  institu- 
tions and  the  union  organizations  which  would  then  be  tolerated, 
those  who  thought  they  could  incorporate  these  industrial  groups  in 
the  mechanism  of  production  and  political  society,  were  guilty  of  the 
most  stupefying  of  errors.  They  were  ignorant  both  of  the  nature 
of  the  State  and  of  the  essence  of  unionism;  they  were  attempting 
the  squaring  of  the  circle  or  perpetual  motion;  they  had  not  an- 
alyzed the  process  of  disintegration  which  humanity  is  undergoing, 
which,  accelerated  by  the  stream  of  industrialism,  has  given  origin 
to  hostile  classes  subordinated  to  one  another,  incapable  of  coexist- 
ing in  a  lasting  equilibrium."  (16) 

We  see  here  a  complete  agreement  with  the  position  of  the 
revolutionary  majority  among  the  Socialists.     If  syndicalist! 
differs  in  any  way  from  other  tendencies  in   the  feocia 
movement,  it  does  so  through  a  difference  of  emphasis  rather 
than  a  difference  of  kind.     It  undoubtedly  exaggerates  t 
possibilities  of   economic  action,  and   underestimates  those 


384  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

of  political  action.  Louis,  for  example,  says  that  the  work- 
ing people  are  the  subj  ects  of  capital,  but  the  masters  of  pro- 
duction, that  they  cannot  live  without  suffering  in  the  factory, 
but  that  society  cannot  live  without  their  labor.  This,  of 
course,  is  only  true  if  stated  in  the  most  unqualified  form. 
Society  is  able  to  dispense  with  all  labor  for  a  short  time,  and 
with  very  many  classes  of  labor  for  long  periods.  Moreover, 
the  forcing  of  labor  at  the  point  of  the  rifle  is  by  no  means 
so  impracticable  during  brief  emergencies  as  is  sometimes 
supposed. 

Syndicalism  may,  perhaps,  be  most  usefully  viewed  as  a 
reaction  against  the  tendency  towards  "  parliamentarism  " 
or  undue  emphasis  on  political  action,  which  has  existed  even 
among  revolutionary  Socialists  in  Germany  and  elsewhere 
(see  Part  II,  Chapter  V).  Among  the  "revisionist"  Socialists 
of  that  country  a  great  friendliness  to  labor  union  action  ex- 
isted, in  view  of  the  comparative  conservatism  of  the  unions. 
For  this  same  reason  the  revolutionaries  became  rather  cold, 
though  never  hostile,  towards  this  form  of  action,  and  con- 
centrated their  attention  on  politics.  In  a  word,  syndicalism 
is  only  to  be  understood  in  the  light  of  the  criticisms  of  revo- 
lutionary Socialism  as  presented  by  Kautsky,  just  as  the 
standpoint  of  the  latter  can  only  be  comprehended  after  it  is 
subjected  to  the  syndicalist  criticism  —  and  doubtless  both 
positions,  however  one-sided  they  appear  elsewhere,  were 
fairly  justified  by  the  economic  and  political  situations  in 
France  and  Germany  respectively.  "Only  as  a  political 
party,"  says  Kautsky,  "can  the  working  class  as  a  whole  come 
to  a  firm  and  lasting  union."  He  then  proceeds  to  argue  that 
purely  economic  struggles  are  always  limited  either  to  a 
locality,  a  town,  or  a  province,  or  else  to  a  given  trade  or 
industry  —  the  directly  opposite  view  to  that  of  the  syndi- 
calists, whose  one  object  is  also,  undeniably,  to  bring  about 
a  unity  of  the  working  class,  though  they  claim  that  this  can 
be  accomplished  only  by  economic  action,  while  from  their  point 
of  view  it  is  political  action  that  always  divides  the  working 
class  by  nation,  section,  and  class. 

"The  pure  and  simple  unionist,"  says  Kautsky,  "is  con- 
servative, even  when  he  behaves  in  a  radical  manner ;  on  the 
other  hand,  every  true  and  independent  political  party 
[Kautsky  is  speaking  here  of  workingmen's  organizations  ex- 
clusively] is  always  revolutionary  by  its  very  nature,  even 
when,  according  to  its  action,  or  even  according  to  the  con- 


SYNDICALISM  385 

sciousness  of  its  members,  it  is  still  moderate."  This  again 
is  the  exact  opposite  of  the  syndicalists'  position.  They  would 
say  that  a  labor  party  unconnected  with  revolutionary  eco- 
nomic action  would  necessarily  be  conservative,  no  matter  how 
revolutionary  it  seemed.  The  truth  from  the  broader  revo- 
lutionary standpoint  is  doubtless  that  neither  political  nor 
economic  action  in  isolation  can  long  continue  to  be  revolu- 
tionary. Exclusively  economic  action  soon  leads  to  exclusive 
emphasis  on  material  and  immediate  gains,  without  reference 
to  the  relative  position  of  the  working  class  or  its  future; 
exclusively  political  action  leads  inevitably  to  concentration 
on  securing  democratic  political  machinery  and  reforms  which 
by  no  means  guarantee  that  labor  is  gaining  on  capital  in  the 
race  for  power. 

To  Kautsky  a  labor  party,  it  would  seem,  might  be  suffi- 
cient in  itself,  even  if  economic  action  should,  for  any  reason, 
become  temporarily  impossible :  — 

"The  formation  and  the  activity  of  a  special  labor  party  which 
wants  to  win  political  power  for  the  working  class  already  presup- 
poses in  a  part  of  the  laboring  class  a  highly  developed  class  con- 
sciousness. But  the  activity  of  this  labor  party  is  the  most  power- 
ful means  to  awaken  and  to  further  class  consciousness  in  the  masses 
of  labor,  also.  It  knows  only  objects  and  tasks  which  have  to  do 
with  the  whole  proletariat ;  the  trade  narrowness,  the  jealousies  of 
single,  and  separate  organizations,  find  no  place  in  it."  (17) 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  an  equally  strong  case  might  be  made 
out  for  the  educative,  unifying,  and  revolutionary  effect  of 
an  aggressive  labor  union  movement  without  any  political 
features.  The  truth  would  seem  to  be  that  any  form  of 
organization  that  honestly  represents  the  working  class  and 
is  at  the  same  time  militant  —  and  no  other  —  advances 
Socialism.  The  objections  to  action  exclusively  political 
hold  also  against  action  exclusively  economic.  Both  trade 
union  action  as  such,  which  inevitably  spends  a  large  part  of 
its  energies  in  trying  to  improve  economic  conditions  in  our 
present  society  by  trade  agreements  and  other  combinations 
with  the  capitalists,  and  political  action  as  such,  which  is 
always  drawn  more  or  less  into  capitalistic  efforts  to  improve 
present  society  by  political  means  is  fundamentally  conserv- 
ative. What  Socialism  requires  is  not  a  political  party  in 
the  ordinary  sense,  but  political  organization  and  a  political 
program;  not  labor  unions,  as  the  term  has  been  understood, 
2c 


386  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

but  aggressive  and  effective  economic  organization,  available 
also  for  the  most  far-reaching  economic  and  political  ends. 

It  seems  probable  that  the  anti-political  element  in  the  new 
revolutionary  unionism  will  soon  be  outgrown.  When  this 
happens,  it  will  meet  the  revolutionary  majority  of  the 
Socialists  on  an  identical  platform.  For  this  revolutionary 
majority  is  steadily  laying  on  more  weight  on  economic 
organization. 

NOTE:  The  profound  opposition  between  the  "State  Socialism"  of  the 
Labour  Party  and  the  revolutionary  aims  and  methods  of  genuine  Socialism 
and  the  new  labor  unionism  appeared  more  clearly  in  the  coal  strike  of  1912 
than  it  had  in  the  railway  strike  of  the  previous  year.  As  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  very  truthfully  remarked  in  Parliament,  no  leaders  of  the  Labour 
Party  had  committed  themselves  to  syndicalism,  while  syndicalism  and  so- 
cialism [i.e.  the  socialism  of  the  Labour  Party]  were  mutually  destructive. 
"We  can  console  ourselves  with  the  fact,"  said  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  "that 
the  best  policeman  for  the  syndicalists  is  the  socialist  [i.e.  the  Labourite]." 

The  conduct  of  many  of  the  Labour  Party  leaders  during  this  strike,  as 
during  the  railway  strike,  fully  justified  the  confidence  of  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer.  Mr.  MacDonald,  for  example,  spoke  of  syndicalism  in 
much  the  same  terms  as  those  used  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George.  He  viewed  it  as 
evil,  to  be  obviated  by  greater  friendliness  and  consideration  on  the  part  of 
employers  towards  employees,  a  position  fully  endorsed  by  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  and  the  other  Radicals  of  the  British  Cabinet. 

The  coal  strike  throughout  was,  indeed,  almost  a  repetition  of  the  railway 
strike.  What  I  have  said  of  the  one  applies,  with  comparatively  slight  changes, 
to  the  other.  Even  the  so-called  Minimum  Wage  Law  is  essentially  identical 
with  the  methods  adopted  to  determine  the  wages  of  railway  employees. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE   "GENERAL  STRIKE" 

NEARLY  all  strikes  are  more  or  less  justified  in  Socialist  eyes. 
But  those  that  involve  neither  a  large  proportion  of  the  work- 
ing class  nor  any  broad  social  or  political  question  are  held 
to  be  of  secondary  importance.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
"sympathetic"  and  "general"  strikes,  which  are  on  such  a 
scale  as  to  become  great  public  issues,  and  are  decided  by  the 
attitude  of  public  opinion  and  the  government  rather  than 
by  the  employers  and  employees  involved,  are  viewed  as  a 
most  essential  part  of  the  class  struggle,  especially  when  in 
their  relation  to  probable  future  contingencies. 

The  social  significance  of  such  sympathetic  or  general 
strikes  is  indeed  recognized  as  clearly  by  non-Socialists  as 
by  Socialists  —  even  in  America,  since  the  great  railroad 
strike  of  1894.  The  general  strike  of  1910  in  Philadelphia, 
for  instance,  was  seen  both  in  Philadelphia  and  in  the  country 
at  large  as  being  a  part  of  a  great  social  conflict.  "The 
American  nation  has  been  brought  face  to  face  for  the  first 
time  with  a  strike,"  said  the  Philadelphia  North  American, 
"not  merely  against  the  control  of  an  industry  or  a  group  of 
allied  industries,  but  a  strike  of  class  against  class,  with  the 
lines  sharply  drawn.  .  .  .  And  it  is  this  antagonism,  this 
class  war,  intangible  and  immeasurable,  that  constitutes  the 
largest  and  most  lamentable  hurt  to  the  city.  It  is,  moreover, 
felt  beyond  the  city  and  throughout  the  entire  nation."  (My 
italics).  It  goes  without  saying  that  all  organs  of  non- 
Socialist  opinion  feel  that  such  threatening  disturbances  are 
lamentable,  for  they  certainly  may  lead  towards  a  revolu- 
tionary situation.  Both  in  this  country  and  Great  Britain 
the  great  railway  strike  of  1911  was  almost  universally  re- 
garded in  this  light. 

The  availability  of  a  general  strike  on  a  national  scale  as  a 
means  of  assaulting  capitalism  at  some  future  crisis  or  as  a 
present  means  of  defending  the  ballot  or  the  rights  of  labor 
organizations  or  of  preventing  a  foreign  war,  has  for  the  past 

387 


388  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

decade  been  the  center  of  discussion  at  many  European 
Socialist  congresses.  The  recent  Prime  Minister  of  France, 
Briand,  was  long  one  of  the  leading  partisans  of  this  method 
of  which  he  said  only  a  few  years  before  he  became  Premier : 
"It  has  the  seductive  quality  that  it  is  after  all  the  exercise 
of  an  incontestable  right.  It  is  a  revolution  which  com- 
mences with  legality.  In  refusing  the  yoke  of  misery,  the 
workingman  revolts  in  the  fullness  of  his  rights;  illegality 
is  committed  by  the  capitalist  class  when  it  becomes  a  prov- 
ocator  by  trying  to  violate  a  right  which  it  has  itself  con- 
secrated." That  Briand  meant  what  he  said  is  indicated  by 
the  advice  he  gave  to  soldiers  who  might  be  ordered  to  fire 
against  the  strikers  in  such  a  crisis.  "If  the  order  to  fire 
should  persist,"  said  Briand,  "if  the  tenacious  officer  should 
wish  to  constrain  the  will  of  the  soldiers  in  spite  of  all.  .  .  . 
Oh,  no  doubt  the  guns  might  go  off,  but  it  might  not  be  in 
the  direction  ordered"  —  and  the  universal  assumption  of  all 
public  opinion  at  that  time  and  since  was  that  he  was  ad- 
vising the  soldiers  that  under  these  circumstances  they  would 
be  justified  in  shooting  their  officers. 

The  Federation  of  Labor  of  France  has  long  adopted  the 
idea  of  the  general  strike  as  appropriate  for  certain  future  con- 
tingencies, as  has  also  the  French  Socialist  Party  —  "To 
realize  the  proposed  plan,"  the  Federation  declares,  "it  will 
be  necessary  first  of  all  to  put  the  locomotives  in  a  condition 
where  they  can  do  no  harm,  to  stop  the  circulation  of  the 
railways,  to  encourage  the  soldiers  to  ground  their  arms." 

As  thus  conceived  by  Briand  and  the  Federation,  few  will 
question  the  revolutionary  character  of  the  proposed  general 
strike.  But  in  what  circumstances  do  the  Socialists  expect 
to  be  able  to  make  use  of  this  weapon?  The  Socialists  of 
many  countries  have  given  the  question  careful  consideration 
in  hundreds  of  writings  and  thousands  of  meetings,  including 
national  and  international  congresses.  Through  the  gradual 
evolution  of  the  plans  of  action  developed  in  all  these  con- 
ferences and  discussions,  they  have  come  to  distinguish 
sharply  between  a  really  general  strike,  e.g.  a  nation-wide 
railroad  strike,  when  used  for  revolutionary  purposes,  and 
other  species  of  widespread  strikes  which  have  merely  a 
tendency  in  a  revolutionary  direction,  such  as  the  Philadelphia 
trouble  I  have  mentioned,  and  they  have  decided  from  these 
deliberations,  as  well  as  considerable  actual  experience,  just 
what  forms  of  general  strike  are  most  promising  and  under 


THE   "GENERAL  STRIKE"  389 

what  contingencies  each  form  is  most  appropriate.  Henriette 
Roland-Hoist  has  summed  up  the  whole  discussion  and  its 
conclusions  in  an  able  monograph  (indorsed  by  Kautsky 
and  others)  from  which  I  shall  resume  a  few  of  the  leading 
points.  (1)  She  concludes  that  railroad  strikes  for  higher 
wages,  unless  for  some  modest  advance  approved  by  a  large 
part  of  the  public,  like  the  recent  British  strike  (which,  in  view 
of  the  rising  cost  of  living,  was  literally  to  maintain  "a  living 
wage  ") ,  can  only  lead  to  a  ferocious  repression.  For  a  nation- 
wide railroad  strike  is  paid  for  by  the  whole  nation,  and  its 
benefits  must  be  nation-wide  if  it  is  to  secure  the  support 
of  that  part  of  the  public  without,  which  it  is  foredoomed 
to  failure.  Otherwise,  says  Roland-Hoist,  "the  greater  has 
been  the  success  of  the  working  people  at  the  beginning,  the 
greater  has  been  the  terror  of  the  middle  classes,"  and  as  a 
consequence  the  measures  of  repression  in  the  end  have  been 
proportionately  desperate.  But  this  applies  only  when  such 
strikes  are  for  aggressive  ends,  like  that  of  1910  in  France, 
and  promise  nothing  to  any  element  of  society  except  the 
employees  immediately  involved. 

If  a  nation-wide  railroad  strike  or  a  prolonged  coal  strike 
is  aggressive,  it  will  inevitably  be  lost  unless  it  has  a  definite 
public  object.  And  the  only  aggressive  political  aim  that 
would  justify,  in  the  minds  of  any  but  those  immediately  in- 
volved, all  the  suffering  and  disorder  a  railroad  strike  of  any 
duration  would  entail,  would  be  a  social  revolution  to  effect 
the  capture  of  government  and  industry.  The  only  other  cir- 
cumstances in  which  such  a  strike  might  be  employed  with 
that  support  of  a  part  at  least  of  the  public  which  is  essential 
to  its  success  would  be  as  a  last  resort,  when  some  great  social 
injustice  was  about  to  be  perpetrated,  like  a  declaration  of 
war,  or  an  effort  to  destroy  the  Socialist  Party  or  the  labor 
unions.  Jaures  says  rightly,  that  even  then  it  would  be  "a 
last  and  desperate  means  less  suited  to  save  one's  self  than  to 
injure  the  enemy." 

These  conclusions  as  to  the  possibilities  and  limitations  of 
the  general  strike  are  based  on  a  careful  study  of  the  military 
and  other  powers  of  the  existing  governments.  "The  power 
of  the  modern  State,"  says  Roland-Hoist,  "is  superior  to  that 
of  the  working  class  in  all  its  material  bases  either  of  a  political 
or  of  an  economic  character.  The  fact  of  political  strikes 
can  change  this  in  no  way.  The  working  class  can  no  more 
conquer  economically,  through  starvation,  than  it  can  through 


390  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

the  use  of  powers  of  the  same  kind  which  the  State  employs, 
that  is,  through  force.  In  only  one  point  is  the  working  class 
altogether  superior  to  the  ruling  class  —  hi  purpose.  .  .  . 
Governmental  and  working  class  organizations  are  of  entirely 
different  dimensions.  The  first  is  a  coercive,  the  second  a 
voluntary,  organization.  The  power  of  the  first  rests  prima- 
rily on  its  means  of  physical  force ;  that  of  the  latter,  which 
lacks  these  means,  can  break  the  physical  superiority  of  the 
State  only  by  its  moral  superiority."  It  is  almost  needless  to 
add  that  by  "moral  superiority"  Roland-Hoist  means  some- 
thing quite  concrete,  the  willingness  of  the  working  people  to 
perform  tasks  and  make  sacrifices  for  the  Socialist  cause  that 
they  would  'not  make  for  the  State  even  under  compulsion. 
It  is  only  through  advantages  of  this  kind,  which  it  is  expected 
will  greatly  increase  with  the  future  growth  of  the  movement, 
that  Socialists  believe  that,  supported  by  an  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  people,  a  time  may  arrive  when  they  can 
make  a  successful  use  of  the  nation-wide  general  strike.  It 
is  hoped  that  the  support  of  the  masses  of  the  population  will 
then  make  it  impossible  for  governments  to  operate  the  rail- 
roads by  military  means,  as  they  have  hitherto  done  in  Rus- 
sia, Hungary,  France,  and  other  countries.  It  is  thought  by 
many  that  the  general  strike  of  1905  in  Russia,  for  example, 
might  have  attained  far  greater  and  more  lasting  results  if 
the  peasants  had  been  sufficiently  aroused  and  intelligent  to 
destroy  the  bridges  and  tracks,  and  it  is  not  doubted  that  a 
Socialist  agricultural  population  consisting  largely  of  laborers 
(see  Chapter  II)  would  do  this  in  such  a  crisis. 

Here,  then,  are  the  two  conditions  under  which  it  is  thought 
by  Roland-Hoist  and  the  majority  of  Socialists  that  the 
general  strike  may  some  day  prove  the  chief  means  of  bring- 
ing about  a  revolution:  the  active  support  of  the  majority 
of  the  people,  and  the  superior  organization  and  methods 
and  the  revolutionary  purpose  of  the  working  classes. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  working  people  to  bring  about  a 
general  strike  when  the  proper  time  arrives,  lies  a  limitless 
field  for  immediate  Socialist  activity.  Both  Jaur&s  and 
Bebel  feel  that  it  is  even  likely  that  the  general  strike  will  also 
have  to  be  used  on  a  somewhat  smaller  scale  even  before  the 
supreme  crisis  comes.  Jaures  thinks  that  it  will  be  needed 
to  bring  about  essential  reforms  or  to  prevent  war,  and  Bebel 
believes  that  it  will  very  likely  have  to  be  used  to  defend  ex- 
isting political  and  economic  rights  of  the  working  class;  in 


THE  "GENERAL  STRIKE"  391 

other  words,  to  protect  the  Party  and  the  unions  from  de- 
struction. At  the  Congress  at  Jena  in  1905  the  conservative 
trade  union  official,  von  Elm,  together  with  a  majority  of  the 
speakers,  argued  that  it  was  possible  that  an  attempt  would 
be  made  to  take  away  from  the  German  working  people  the 
right  of  suffrage,  the  freedom  of  the  press  and  assemblage  and 
the  right  of  organization.  In  such  a  case  he  and  others  ad- 
vocate a  general  strike,  though  he  said  he  fully  realized  it 
would  be  a  bloody  one.  "We  must  reckon  with  this,"  he 
said.  "As  a  matter  of  course,  we  wish  to  shed  no  blood,  but 
our  enemies  drive  us  into  the  situation.  .  .  .  The  moment 
comes  when  you  must  be  ready  to  give  up  your  blood  and 
your  property  [here  he  was  interrupted  by  stormy  applause]. 
Prepare  yourselves  for  this  possibility.  Our  youths  must 
be  brought  up  so  that  among  the  soldiers  here  and  there  will 
be  a  man  who  will  think  twice  before  he  shoots  at  his  father 
and  mother  [as  Kaiser  Wilhelm  publicly  insists  he  must], 
and  at  the  same  time  at  freedom."  The  reception  of  von 
Elm's  speech  showed  that  his  words  represented  the  feeling 
of  the  whole  German  movement.  Bebel  spoke  with  the 
same  decision,  advocating  the  use  of  the  general  strike  under 
the  same  conditions  as  did  von  Elm,  while  at  the  next  con- 
gress at  Mannheim  he  declared  that  it  would  also  be  justified, 
under  certain  circumstances,  not  only  for  protecting  existing 
rights,  but  for  extending  them,  e.g.  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining 
universal  and  equal  suffrage  in  Prussia.  Bebel  did  not  think 
that  the  party  or  the  unions  were  strong  enough  at  that 
moment  to  use  the  general  strike  for  other  than  defensive 
purposes,  but  he  said  that,  if  they  were  able  to  double  their 
strength,  —  and  it  now  seems  they  will  have  accomplished 
this  within  a  very  few  years, — then  the  time  would  doubtless 
arrive  when  it  would  be  worth  while  to  risk  the  employment 
of  this  rather  desperate  measure  for  aggressive  purposes 
also. 

While  Socialism  is  thus  traveling  steadily  in  the  direction  of 
a  revolutionary  general  strike,  capitalist  governments  are 
coming  to  regard  every  strike  of  the  first  importance  as  a 
sort  of  rebellion.  In  discussing  the  Socialist  possibilities  of 
a  national  railroad  strike,  Roland-Hoist,  representing  the 
usual  Socialist  view,  says  that  it  makes  very  little  difference 
whether  the  roads  are  nationally  or  privately  owned;  in 
either  case  such  a  strike  is  likely  to  be  considered  by  cap- 
italistic governments  as  something  like  rebellion. 


392  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

But  while  this  applies  only  to  the  employees  of  the  most 
important  services  like  railroads,  when  privately  operated, 
it  applies  practically  to  all  government  employees ;  there  is 
an  almost  universal  tendency  to  regard  strikes  against  the 
government  as  being  mutiny  —  an  evidence  of  the  profoundly 
capitalistic  character  of  government  ownership  and  "State 
Socialism"  which  propose  to  multiply  the  number  of  such 
employees.  Here,  too,  the  probable  governmental  attitude 
towards  a  future  general  strike  is  daily  indicated. 

President  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  of  Columbia  University, 
has  written  that  any  strike  of  "servants  of  the  State,  in  any 
capacity  —  military,  naval,  or  civil,"  should  be  considered 
both  treason  and  mutiny. 

"In  my  judgment  loyalty  and  treason,"  he  writes,  "ought  to 
mean  the  same  thing  in  the  civil  service  that  they  do  in  military  and 
naval  services.  The  door  to  get  out  is  always  open  if  one  does  not 
wish  to  serve  the  public  on  these  terms.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that 
as  civilization  progresses  loyalty  and  treason  in  the  civil  services  will 
not  become  more  important  and  more  vital  than  loyalty  and  treason 
in  the  military  and  naval  services.  The  happiness  and  the  pros- 
perity of  a  community  might  be  more  easily  wrecked  by  the  paralysis 
of  its  postal  and  telegraph  services,  for  example,  than  by  a  mutiny 
on  shipboard.  .  .  .  President  Roosevelt's  attitude  on  all  this  ^vas 
at  times  very  sound,  but  he  wabbled  a  good  deal  in  dealing  with 
specific  cases.  In  the  celebrated  Miller  Case  at  the  Government 
Printing  Office  he  laid  down  in  his  published  letter  what  I  conceive 
to  be  the  sound  doctrine  in  regard  to  this  matter.  It  was  then  made 
plain  to  the  printers  that  to  leave  their  work  under  pretense  of  strik- 
ing was  to  resign,  in  effect,  the  places  which  they  held  in  the  public 
service,  and  that  if  those  places  were  vacated  they  would  be  filled  in 
accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  civil  service  act,  and  not  by  re- 
appointment  of  the  old  employees  after  parley  and  compromise.  .  .  . 
To  me  the  situation  which  this  problem  presents  is,  beyond  com- 
parison, the  most  serious  and  the  most  far-reaching  which  the  modern 
democracies  have  to  face."  Dr.  Butler  concludes  that  this  question 
"will  wreck  every  democratic  government  in  the  world  unless  it  is 
faced  sturdily  and  bravely  now,  and  settled  on  righteous  lines." 
(My  italics.)  (2) 

Our  Ex-President,  however,  has  ceased  apparently  to 
"wabble."  In  Mr.  Roosevelt's  medium,  the  Outlook, 
an  editorial  on  the  strike  of  the  municipal  street  cleaners  of 
New  York  City  reads  in  part  as  follows :  — 

Men  who  are  employed  by  the  public  cannot  strike.  They  can,  and 
sometimes  they  do,  mutiny.  When  they  should  be  treated  not  as  strikers 
but  as  mutineers. 


THE  "GENERAL  STRIKE"  393 

This  issue  was  presented  by  the  refusal  of  the  men  to  do  what 
they  were  ordered  to  do.  When  soldiers  do  that  in  warfare  they  are 
given  short  shrift.  Of  course,  in  combating  accumulating  dirt  and  its 
potent  ally,  disease,  an  army  of  street  cleaners  is  not  face  to  face  with 
any  such  acute  public  dangers  as  those  confronting  a  military  force ; 
and  therefore  insubordination  among  street  cleaners  does  not  call 
for  any  such  severity  as  that  which  is  absolutely  necessary  in  war 
times ;  but  the  principle  in  the  one  case  is  the  same  as  that  in  the  other  — 
those  who  disrupt  the  forces  of  public  defense  range  themselves  on  the 
side  of  the  public  enemy.  They  are  not  in  any  respect  on  the  same 
basis  as  the  employees  of  a  private  employer.  They  are  wage  earners 
only  in  the  sense  that  soldiers  are  wage  earners.  (3) 

When  Senator  La  Follette  indorsed  the  right  of  railway 
mail  clerks  to  organize,  President  Taft  said  (May  14, 1911) :  — 

"This  presents  a  very  serious  question,  and  one  which,  if  decided 
in  favor  of  the  right  of  government  employees  to  strike  and  use  the 
boycott,  will  be  full  of  danger  to  the  government  and  to  the  republic. 

"The  government  employees  of  France  resorted  to  it  and  took  the 
government  by  the  throat.  The  executive  was  entirely  dependent 
upon  these  employees  for  its  continuance. 

"When  those  in  executive  authority  refused  to  acquiesce  in  the 
demands,  the  government  employees  struck,  and  then  with  the  help- 
lessness of  the  government  and  the  destruction  of  all  authority  and 
the  choking  of  government  activities  it  was  seen  that  to  allow  govern- 
ment employees  the  use  of  such  an  instrument  was  to  recognize  rev- 
olution as  a  lawful  means  of  securing  an  increase  in  compensation 
for  one  class,  and  that  a  privileged  class,  at  the  expense  of  all  the 
public.  .  .  . 

"The  government  employees  are  a  privileged  class  whose  work  is 
necessary  to  carry  on  the  government  and  upon  whose  entry  into 
the  government  service  it  is  entirely  reasonable  to  impose  conditions 
that  should  not  be  and  ought  not  to  be  imposed  upon  those  who  serve 
private  employers." 

Here  the  Socialists  join  issue  squarely  with  the  almost  uni- 
versally prevalent  non-Socialist  opinion.  They  do  not  con- 
sider government  employment  a  "privilege"  nor  any  strike 
whatever  as  ' '  mutiny, "  "  treason, "  or  "  rebellion. ' '  Socialists 
believe  that  the  only  possible  means  of  maintaining  democracy 
at  all  in  this  age  when  government  employees  are  beginning 
to  increase  in  numbers  more  rapidly  than  those  of  private 
industry,  is  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  maintain  their 
right  to  organize  and  to  strike  —  no  matter  how  great  diffi- 
culties it  may  involve.  To  decide  the  question  as  President 


394  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

Butler  wishes,  or  as  President  Taft  implies  it  should  be 
decided,  Socialists  believe,  would  mean  to  turn  every  govern- 
ment into  a  military  organization.  The  time  is  not  far  dis- 
tant when  in  all  the  leading  nations  a  very  large  part  and  in 
some  cases  a  majority  of  the  population  will  be  in  govern- 
ment employment.  If  even  the  present  limited  rights  of 
organization  are  done  away  with,  and  the  military  laws  of 
subordination  are  applied,  Socialists  ask,  shall  we  not  have 
exactly  that  military  and  autocratic  bureaucracy,  that  "State 
Socialism"  which  Spencer  so  rightly  feared?  The  fact  that 
these  perfectly  legal  and  necessary  strikes  may  some  day  lead 
to  revolution  is  capitalism's  misfortune,  which  society  will 
not  permit  it  to  cure  by  turning  the  clock  back  to  ab- 
solutism. The  question  of  the  organization  of  government 
employees,  one  of  the  most  important  to-day,  will,  as  Presi- 
dent Butler  says,  be  the  crucial  question  of  the  near  future. 

It  is  in  France  that  the  question  has  come  to  the  first  test, 
not  because  the  French  bureaucracy  is  more  numerous  than 
that  of  Prussia  and  some  other  Continental  countries,  but 
because  of  the  powerful  democratic  and  Socialist  tendency 
that  has  grown  up  along  with  this  bureaucracy  and  is  now 
directed  against  it.  Especially  interesting  is  the  fact  that 
Briand,  who  not  long  ago  advocated  the  Socialist  general 
strike  and  certainly  realized  its  danger  to  present  government 
as  well  as  its  possibilities  for  Socialism,  has,  as  Premier, 
evolved  measures  of  repression  against  organizations  of  State 
employees  more  stringent  than  have  been  introduced  in  any 
country  making  the  slightest  pretension  to  democratic  or 
semi-democratic  government. 

The  world  first  became  aware  of  the  importance  of  this 
issue  at  the  time  of  the  organization  and  the  strike  of  the 
French  telegraphers  and  post  office  employees  in  the  early 
part  of  1909,  and  again  in  the  railway  strike  in  1910.  As 
early  as  1906  the  organized  postal  employees  had  been  defi- 
nitely refused  the  right  to  strike,  and  it  became  manifest  that 
if  they  attempted  to  use  this  weapon  to  correct  the  very 
serious  grievances  under  which  they  suffered,  it  would  be 
looked  upon  as  "a  kind  of  treason  against  the  State."  At 
the  end  of  1908,  however,  after  having  discussed  the  matter 
for  many  years,  a  congress  of  all  the  employees  of  the  State 
was  held.  More  than  twenty  different  associations  partic- 
ipated and  decided  unanimously  to  claim  the  full  rights  of 
other  labor  organizations.  Finally,  when  these  organizations 


THE   "GENERAL  STRIKE"  395 

appealed  to  the  General  Federation  of  Labor  to  help  them, 
there  came  the  strike  of  1909.  Unfortunately  for  the  post- 
men, the  French  railway  and  miners'  unions  were  at  the 
moment  still  in  relatively  conservative  hands,  and  the  ma- 
jority of  their  members  were  as  yet  by  no  means  anxious  to 
aid  in  the  general  strike  movement.  After  a  brilliant  success 
in  their  first  effort,  a  second  strike  a  few  weeks  later  proved 
a  total  failure. 

The  government  then  began  to  make  it  clear  that  public 
employees  were  to  be  allowed  no  right  to  strike,  and  JaurSs 
pointed  out  that  it  was  trying  to  carry  this  new  repressive 
legislation  by  accompanying  it  by  new  pension  laws  and  other 
concessions  to  the  State  employees,  —  a  repetition  of  the  old 
policy  of  more  bread  and  less  power,  which  is  likely  to  play 
a  more  and  more  important  role  every  year  as  we  enter  into 
the  State  capitalistic  period. 

The  character  of  the  organizations  allowed  for  govern- 
ment employees,  under  the  new  laws,  would  remind  one 
of  Prussia  or  Russia  rather  than  France.  While  certain 
forms  of  association  are  permitted,  the  right  to  strike  is  pre- 
cluded, and  the  various  associations  of  government  employees 
are  forbidden  either  to  form  any  kind  of  federation  or  to 
unite  with  other  unions  outside  of  government  employments. 
"Councils  of  discipline  are  created  where  the  employees  are 
represented,"  but  "in  the  case  of  a  collected  or  concerted  ces- 
sation of  work  all  disciplinary  penalties  may  be  inflicted  with- 
out the  intervention  of  the  councils  of  discipline ;  courts  may 
order  the  dissolution  of  any  union  at  the  request  of  the  minis- 
try," which  means  that  at  any  moment  a  police  war  may  be 
instituted  against  these  organizations,  in  the  true  Russian 
style. 

The  reply  of  the  postmen's  organization  to  this  kind  of 
legislation  is,  that  the  administration  of  the  post  office  is  an 
industrial  and  commercial  administration;  that  it  is  a  vast 
enterprise  of  general  utility;  that  the  notion  of  loyalty  or 
treason  is  entirely  misplaced  in  this  field.  They  have  de- 
clared that  the  new  legislation  is  wrong  "because  it  perpetu- 
ates the  bureaucratic  tradition;  because  with  a  contempt 
for  all  the  necessities  of  modern  life  it  discountenances  organi- 
zation of  labor ;  because  it  has  constituted  a  repressive  legal 
condition  for  wage  earners;  and  because  it  is  an  act  of  au- 
thority which  has  nothing  in  common  with  free  contract." 

Here  we  see  the  public  employees,  supported  by  the  Social- 


396  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

ists,  insisting  on  industrial  and  commercial  considerations, 
on  the  rights  of  individuals  and  on  free  contract,  as  against 
the  capitalists  and  governing  classes,  who  claim  to  defend 
these  very  principles  from  supposed  Socialist  attacks,  but 
abandon  them  the  moment  they  threaten  capitalist  profits 
and  capitalist  rule.  This  attitude  of  the  French  Socialist 
shows  the  very  heart  of  the  Socialist  situation.  In  fact,  it  is 
only  as  private  capitalism  becomes  State  capitalism,  or  "State 
Socialism,"  that  Socialists  will  be  able  to  show  what  their 
position  really  is.  It  is  only  then  that  the  coercive  aspect  of 
capitalism,  which  is  now  partly  latent  and  partly  obscured 
by  certain  functions  that  it  has  still  to  fill  in  the  development 
of  society,  will  become  visible  to  all  eyes. 
1  The  French  railroad  strike  of  October,  1910,  brought  the 
question  of  organizations  of  government  employees  still  more 
into  international  prominence.  Until  the  recent  British  up- 
heaval it  was,  perhaps,  the  greatest  and  most  menacing  strike 
in  modern  history.  It  is  true  that  its  apparent  object  was 
only  a  few  just,  and  relatively  insignificant  economic  conces- 
sions —  which  were  granted  for  the  most  part  immediately 
after  the  struggle.  But  behind  these,  as  every  one  realized, 
lay  the  question  of  the  right  of  government  employees  to 
organize  and  to  strike  and  the  determination  of  the  French 
Socialists  and  labor  unionists  to  use  the  opportunity  to  take 
a  step  towards  the  "general  strike." 

Never  has  the  issue  between  capitalism  and  Socialism  been 
more  sharply  defined  than  in  Premier  Briand's  impulsively 
frank  declaration  after  the  strike  (though  it  was  later  re- 
tracted) :  "I  say  emphatically,  if  the  laws  have  not  given  the 
government  the  means  of  keeping  the  country  master  of  its 
railways  and  the  national  defense,  it  would  not  have  hesitated 
to  take  recourse  to  illegality." 

This  is  almost  the  exact  declaration  of  Ex-President  Roose- 
velt in  his  Decoration  Day  speech  in  1911,  when  he  said  that 
really  revolutionary  men  dreaded  and  hated  him  because  they 
knew  that  he  wouldn't  let  the  Constitution  stand  in  the  way 
of  punishing  them  if  they  did  wrong. 

Milder  but  no  less  positive  expressions  of  an  intention  to 
use  illegal  means  to  coerce  labor,  if  it  does  not  act  as  present 
authorities  dictate,  were  to  be  heard  from  responsible  sources 
both  in  England  and  America  after  the  recent  British  rail- 
way strike.  The  non-Socialist  press  then  came  almost  unan- 
imously to  the  conclusion  that  an  attempt  must  be  made  to 


THE  "GENERAL  STRIKE"  397 

take  away  the  sole  weapon  by  which  labor  is  able  to  protect 
itself  or  advance  its  position  as  soon  as  "the  public"  is  dam- 
aged by  its  use  —  which  amounts  to  reducing  wage  earners 
to  the  status  of  children,  soldiers,  or  other  wards  of  the  com- 
munity. "If  railroad  and  telegraph  strikes  are  many  and 
violent,"  said  Collier's  Weekly,  "they  will  encourage  govern- 
ment ownership  without  unionization."  (4) 

The  Outlook  stopped  short  of  government  ownership,  but 
announced  a  similar  principle:  "The  railways  are  public 
highways;  they  must  be  controlled  by  the  nation  for  the 
public  good;  the  operation  of  the  railways  must  not  be 
stopped  because  of  disputes ;  and,  as  a  corollary  to  this  last 
law  of  necessity,  the  government  must  furnish  an  adequate 
and  just  method  of  settling  railway  disputes."  (5)  Every 
step  in  government  control  is  to  be  accompanied  by  a  step 
in  the  control  of  labor,  and  restriction  of  the  power  of  labor 
unions.  The  right  of  employees  to  protect  themselves  by 
leaving  their  work  in  a  body  is  to  be  taken  away  completely, 
while  the  right  to  discharge  or  punish  is  to  remain  intact  in 
persons  over  whom  the  employees  can  have  little  or  no  control. 

Governments  are  evidently  ready  to  proceed  to  illegality 
for  the  sake  of  self-preservation  —  even  from  a  perfectly  legal 
attack,  if  it  threatens  to  destroy  them  or  to  transfer  the 
government  into  the  hands  of  the  non-capitalist  classes. 
Of  course  a  capitalist  government  can  pass  "laws, "e.g. 
martial  law,  under  which  anything  it  chooses  to  do  against 
its  opponents  becomes  "legal"  and  anything  effective  its 
opponents  do  becomes  illegal.  In  the  present  age  of  general 
enlightenment,  however,  this  method  does  not  even  deceive 
Russian  peasants.  But  the  French  government  is  now 
turning  to  this  device.  Briand  explained  away  his  sensa- 
tional declaration  above  quoted,  and  then  proposed  a  law 
by  which  striking  on  a  railway  becomes  a  crime  and  almost 
a  felony.  This  met  universal  approval  in  the  capitalistic 
press  and  universal  denunciation  in  that  of  the  Socialists 
and  labor  unions.  The  Boston  Herald,  for  example,  said: 
"The  Executive  must  be  armed  with  greater  authority  than 
he  now  possesses.  No  Premier  must  be  forced  to  say,  as 
M.  Briand  did  recently,  that,  with  or  without  law,  national 
supremacy  will  be  preserved  in  case  it  is  challenged  by  allied 
workers  for  the  State,  as  well  as  by  other  toilers."  Here 
there  is  no  effort  to  disguise  the  fact  that  the  new  legal  form 
is  the  exact  equivalent  of  the  illegal  force  formerly  proposed. 


398  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Now  the  peasants  and  the  lower  middle  classes  of  France, 
as  well  as  the  working  people  (land  and  opportunities  being 
more  and  more  difficult  to  obtain),  are  becoming  extremely 
radical.  Though  they  do  not  send  Socialist  deputies  to  the 
Chamber,  they  send  representatives  who  are  very  suspicious 
of  arbitrary,  undemocratic,  and  centralized  authority.  Only 
215  members  of  the  Chamber  could  be  induced  to  approve 
of  the  government's  conduct  during  the  strike  of  1910,  while 
more  than  200  abstained  from  voting  on  this  point,  and  166 
voted  in  the  negative.  The  proposed  measures  of  repression 
were  carried  by  a  small  majority,  but  it  is  not  likely  that 
they  can  be  enforced  many  years  without  bringing  about 
another  and  far  more  revolutionary  crisis.  Briand  and  his 
associates,  Millerand  and  Viviani,  were  forced  to  resign, 
partly  on  account  of  their  conduct  in  this  strike,  and  it  is 
possible  that  after  another  election  or  two  the  Chamber 
will  no  longer  give  its  consent  to  this  relegation  of  working- 
men  to  the  status  of  common  soldiers.  Only  six  months 
after  the  strike,  Briand's  successor,  Monis,  with  the  consent 
of  the  Chamber,  was  bringing  governmental  pressure  to  bear 
on  the  privately  owned  railways  to  force  them  to  take  back 
dismissed  strikers.  In  the  next  ministry,  that  of  Caillaux, 
the  Minister  of  Labor,  Augagneur,  the  former  Socialist,  pur- 
sued the  same  policy  of  pressing  for  the  reinstatement  of  a 
large  part  of  the  discharged  employees  of  the  private  rail- 
roads while  insisting  that  the  employees  of  government 
railroads  could  not  be  allowed  to  strike.  And  again,  at  the 
end  of  1911,  the  government  secured  only  286  votes  in  favor 
of  this  policy,  to  193  against  it. 

France  is  by  no  means  the  only  country  where  the  question 
of  strikes  of  government  employees  has  become  all-important. 
When  the  railways  were  nationalized  in  Italy  there  was  con- 
siderable Socialist  opposition  on  the  ground  that  the  em- 
ployees were  likely  to  lose  a  part  of  such  rights  as  they  had 
had  when  in  private  employment,  and  it  turned  out  just  as 
was  feared.  The  position  of  the  Italian  Socialists  on  the 
subject  is  as  interesting  as  that  of  the  French.  The  Congress 
at  Florence  in  1908  resolved  that  "considering  the  fact  that 
a  strike  of  municipalized  or  nationalized  services  represents, 
not  the  struggle  of  the  proletariat  against  a  private  capitalistic 
enterprise,  but  the  conflict  of  a  class  against  the  collectivity, 
whence  the  difficulty  of  its  success,  the  employees  in  public 
service  ought  to  be  advised  not  to  proclaim  a  strike  unless 


THE   "GENERAL  STRIKE"  399 

urged  on  by  the  most  compelling  motives  and  when  every 
other  means  have  failed;  but  "taking  it  into  consideration 
at  the  same  time  that  in  the  present  condition  of  society  the 
working  people  in  public  service  have  no  other  means  to 
guarantee  the  defense  of  their  rights,  and  that  in  critical 
moments  of  history  the  suspension  of  public  services  is  among 
the  most  efficacious  arms  of  which  the  proletariat  can  avail 
itself  to  disorganize  the  defense  of  the  government,  any  dis- 
position to  bring  into  legislation  the  principle  of  the  abolition 
of  the  right  to  strike  is  dangerous"  and  "any  attempt  in  that 
direction"  must  be  defeated. 

The  gulf  between  those  who  consider  the  collective  refusal 
of  the  organizations  of  government  employees  to  work  under 
conditions  they  do  not  accept,  as  being  "  treason "  and 
"mutiny,"  and  those  who  feel  that  such  an  organization  is 
the  very  basis  of  industrial  democracy  of  the  future  and  the 
sole  possible  guarantee  of  liberty,  is  surely  unbridgeable. 

The  clash  between  the  classes  on  this  question  of  liveli- 
hood and  liberty  is  already  momentous,  but  its  full  signifi- 
cance can  only  be  realized  when  the  Socialist  aim  is  recalled. 
As  employees  of  railroads,  of  governments,  and  of  industries 
become  Socialists,  they  will  not  only  be  ready  to  strike  to 
raise  their  wages,  or  to  protect  the  unions  and  the  Socialist 
Party,  or  to  prevent  military  reaction,  but  also  —  when  they 
have  the  majority  with  them  —  to  take  possession  of  govern- 
ment. 

An  editorial  in  the  New  York  Call  (October  31,  1911)  shows 
how  most  American  Socialists  expect  the  general  strike  to 
work :  — 

"The  failure  of  one  'general'  strike,  or  any  attempt  to  carry  out  a 
general  strike,  does  not  bankrupt  or  destroy  the  working  class,  for 
the  reason  that  it  is  that  class  which  holds  the  future  in  its  hands. 
Nor  does  such  f aihire  help  capitalism  —  the  decaying  system  —  in 
any  way.  On  the  contrary,  it  helps  disintegrate  it,  and  the  failure 
itself  is  merely  the  necessary  prelude  to  a  still  stronger  assault  by 
the  same  method.  The  general  strike  seems  to  be  like  what  is  said  of 
democracy,  that  the  cure  for  democracy  is  still  more  democracy. 
In  the  same  way  the  cure  for  the  general  strike  is  to  make  it  still 
more  '  general '  in  character.  The  less '  general '  it  is,  the  less  chance 
has  it  of  success,  and  the  more  'general'  it  can  be  made,  the  more 
certain  is  it  of  success. 

"  And  that  success  may  not,  and  very  likely  will  not,  take  the  form 
hoped  for  by  those  who  advocate  it  as  a  means  of  immediate  or  even 
ultimate  social  revolution.  But  even  this,  if  true,  is  no  argument 


400  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

against  its  use.  It  will,  however,  bring  the  social  revolution  nearer 
in  other  ways. 

"  We  hardly,  for  instance,  expect  to  see  the  capitalists,  paralyzed  by 
the  most  'general'  of  general  strikes  surrender  their  property  off- 
hand to  the  victorious  proletariat  in  despair  of  being  able  to  operate 
it  themselves.  Much  as  we  would  like  to  see  the  working  class  march 
in  and  take  possession  of  the  abandoned  factories  and  workshops 
in  this  manner,  and  commence  operations  under  their  collective 
ownership,  the  vision  can  only  remain  while  other  factors  are  dis- 
regarded. There  is  possibly  much  more  flexibility  and  elasticity  in 
the  capitalist  system  than  is  usually  imagined  by  Socialists.  As 
William  Morris  tells  old  John  Ball,  the  'rascal  hedge-priest,' 
'Mastership  hath  many  shifts'  before  it  finally  goes  down  and  out. 

"  If  we  were  to  venture  an  opinion,  the  course  and  procedure  of  the 
general  strike,  with  special  reference  to  the  railroads  and  allied 
industries,  will  follow  something  in  this  order. 

"  General  strikes  will  succeed  one  another  intermittently,  each  be- 
coming more  'general,'  the  method  finally  establishing  itself  as  a 
settled  policy  of  the  workers  in  enforcing  their  demands.  Some 
may  fail,  but  from  time  to  time  they  will  grow  more  'general'  and 
more  powerful,  and  will  wrest  more  concessions  from  the  owners, 
until  the  point  is  reached  where  the  railroad  business  will  return 
practically  no  private  profits  to  its  owners.  And  when  this  point 
is  reached,  or  the  certainty  of  its  being  reached  is  plainly  seen,  then 
mastership  will  make  its  next  shift.  There  will  be  two  alternatives. 

"The  first  is  literal,  physical  suppression,  by  the  armed  forces  of  the 
nation  still  under  control  of  the  capitalists,  and  greatly  augmented 
for  the  purpose.  This,  however,  for  a  multitude  of  reasons,  is  a  most 
dangerous  policy  and  much  more  'impossible'  than  the  general 
strike.  Instead  of  postponing  social  revolution,  it  rather  accelerates 
its  approach. 

"  The  other  alternative,  and  the  one  by  all  means  most  likely  to  be 
adopted,  is  government  ownership  of  the  railroads,  with  the  capital- 
ists, of  course,  as  owners  of  the  government.  This  will  undoubtedly 
be  ushered  in  as  'State  Socialism/  Laws  will  be  passed  constituting 
the  railroad  workers  as  direct  servants  of  the  State,  and  forbidding 
the  general  strike  or  any  other  kind  of  strike. 

"  The  prohibition  will  not  have  the  desired  effect.  If  attempted 
to  be  enforced,  it  merely  throws  capitalist  society  back  on  the  first 
dangerous  alternative  policy  we  have  mentioned.  But  it  will  give 
capitalism  a  breathing  spell,  and  a  chance  to  'spar  for  wind'  for  a 
while,  which  is  the  best  it  can  expect.  The  general  strike  will  still  be 
utilized  to  assail  the  capitalist  State  and  its  property. 

"The  final  struggle  will  be  a  political  one,  for  the  capture  of  the 
State  from  the  hands  of  the  capitalists,  and  such  capture  will  mean 
the  transfer  of  capitalist  State-owned  property  to  collective  property 
and  the  establishment  of  industrial  democracy,  or  Socialism." 


CHAPTER  VII 

REVOLUTION  IN  DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL 
GOVERNMENT 

"THE  workers  do  not  yet  understand,"  says  Debs,  "that 
they  are  engaged  in  a  class  struggle,  and  must  unite  their 
class  and  get  on  the  right  side  of  that  struggle  economically, 
politically,  and  in  every  other  way  —  strike  together,  vote 
together,  and,  if  necessary,  fight  together."  (1)  Socialists 
are  prepared  to  use  force  when  governments  resort  to  arbi- 
trary violence  —  for  example,  to  martial  "law."  In  the 
Socialist  view  no  occasion  whatever  justifies  the  suspension 
of  the  regular  government  the  people  has  instituted  —  and 
even  if  such  an  occasion  could  arise  there  is  no  authority 
to  which  they  would  consent  to  give  arbitrary  power.  Mili- 
tary "government"  is  not  government,  but  organized  vio- 
lence. 

Tolstoi's  masterly  language  on  this  matter  will  scarcely 
be  improved  upon :  — 

"The  slavery  of  the  working  people  is  due  to  this,  that  there  are 
governments.  But  if  the  slavery  of  the  laborers  is  due  to  the  govern- 
ment, the  emancipation  is  naturally  conditioned  by  the  abolition  of 
the  existing  governments  and  the  establishment  of  new  governments, 
—  such  as  will  make  possible  the  liberation  of  the  land  from  owner- 
ship, the  abolition  of  taxes,  and  the  transference  of  the  capital  and 
the  factories  into  the  power  and  control  of  the  working  people. 

"There  are  men  who  recognize  this  issue  as  possible,  and  who  are 
preparing  themselves  for  it.  ...  So  long  as  the  soldiers  are  in 
the  hands  of  the  government,  which  lives  on  taxes  and  is  connected 
with  the  owners  of  land  and  of  capital,  a  revolution  is  impossible. 
And  so  long  as  the  soldiers  are  in  the  hands  of  the  government,  the 
structure  of  life  will  be  such  as  those  who  have  the  soldiers  in  their 
hands  want  it  to  be. 

"The  governments,  who  are  already  in  possession  of  a  disciplined 
force,  will  never  permit  the  formation  of  another  disciplined  force. 
All  the  attempts  of  the  past  century  have  shown  how  vain  such 
attempts  are.  Nor  is  there  a  way  out,  as  the  Socialists  believe,  by 
means  of  forming  a  great  economic  force  which  would  be  able  to 
2D  401 


402  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

fight  successfully  against  the  consolidated  and  ever  more  con- 
solidating force  of  the  capitalists.  Never  will  the  labor  unions, 
who  may  be  in  possession  of  a  few  miserable  millions,  be  able  to  fight 
against  the  economic  power  of  the  multimillionaires,  who  are  always 
supported  by  the  military  force.  Just  as  little  is  there  a  way  out 
as  is  proposed  by  other  Socialists,  by  getting  possession  of  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Parliament.  Such  a  majority  in  the  Parliament  will 
not  attain  anything,  so  long  as  the  army  is  in  the  hands  of  the  govern- 
ments. The  moment  the  decrees  of  the  Parliament  are  opposed  to 
the  interests  of  the  ruling  classes,  the  government  will  close  and  dis- 
perse such  a  parliament,  as  has  been  so  frequently  done  and  as  will 
be  done  so  long  as  the  army  is  in  the  hands  of  the  government." 

Tolstoi,  in  spite  of  his  contrary  impression,  here  reaches 
conclusions  which  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  Socialists; 
for  they  are  well  aware  that  armies  are  likely  to  be  used  to 
dissolve  Parliaments  and  labor  unions. 

"The  introduction  of  socialistic  principles  into  the  army  will  not 
accomplish  anything,"  Tolstoi  continues.  "The  hypnotism  of  the 
army  is  so  artfully  applied  that  the  most  free-thinking  and  rational 
person  will,  so  long  as  he  is  in  the  army,  always  do  what  is  demanded 
of  him.  Thus  there  is  no  way  out  by  means  of  revolution  or  in 
Socialism." 

Here  Tolstoi  is  again  mistaken,  for  at  this  point  also  Social- 
ists agree  with  him  completely.  The  soldier,  they  agree, 
must  be  reached,  and  some  think  must  even  be  led  to  act, 
before  he  reaches  the  barracks  —  whether  he  is  about  to 
enter  them  for  military  training  in  times  of  peace  or  for  serv- 
ice in  times  of  war. 

"If  there  is  a  way  out,"  concludes  Tolstoi,  "it  is  the  one  which  has 
not  been  used  yet,  and  which  alone  incontestably  destroys  the  whole 
consolidated,  artful,  and  long-established  governmental  machine 
for  the  enslavement  of  the  masses.  This  way  out  consists  in  refusing 
to  enter  into  the  army,  before  one  is  subjected  to  the  stupefying  and 
corrupting  influence  of  discipline. 

"This  way  out  is  the  only  one  which  is  possible  and  which  at 
the  same  time  is  inevitably  obligatory  for  every  individual  per- 
son." (2) 

Socialists  differ  from  the  great  Russian,  not  in  their  analysis 
of  the  situation,  but  in  their  more  practical  remedy.  They 
would  organize  the  campaign  against  military  service  instead 
of  leaving  it  to  the  individual,  and  after  they  had  converted 


DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  403 

a  sufficient  majority  to  their  views  they  would  not  hesitate 
to  use  any  kind  of  force  that  seemed  necessary  to  put  an  end 
to  government  by  force.  But  they  would  not  proceed  to 
such  lengths  until  their  political  and  economic  modes  of 
action  were  forcefully  prevented  from  further  development. 
If  civil  government  is  suspended  to  combat  the  great  general 
strike  towards  which  Socialists  believe  society  is  moving 
they  will  undertake  to  restore  it  or  to  set  up  a  new  one  to 
replace  that  which  the  authorities  have  "legally"  destroyed. 
I  say  legally  because  all  capitalist  governments  have  provided 
for  this  contingency  by  giving  their  executives  the  right  to 
suspend  government  when  they  please  —  on  the  .  pretext 
that  its  existence  is  threatened  by  internal  disorder.  It  has 
been  generally  and  publicly  agreed  among  capitalist  authori- 
ties that  this  power  shall  be  used  in  the  case  of  a  general 
strike  —  as  the  British  government  declared,  at  the  time  of 
the  recent  railway  strike,  whether  there  is  extensive  popular 
violence  or  not. 

I  have  shown  that  the  Socialists  contemplate  the  use  of 
the  general  strike  whenever,  in  vital  matters,  governments 
refuse  to  bow  to  the  clearly  expressed  will  of  the  majority, 
and  that  they  recognize  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  before 
such  a  measure  can  be  used  successfully.  Of  course  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  population  will  have  to  be  against 
the  government.  But  the  military  aspect  of  the  question 
may  possibly  make  it  necessary  that  the  majority  to  be  se- 
cured will  have  to  be  even  greater  than  was  at  first  contem- 
plated, and  that  an  even  more  intense  struggle  will  have  to 
be  carried  on.  The  Bismarcks  of  the  world  are  already 
using  armies  as  strike  breakers  and  training  them  especially 
for  this  purpose,  while  even  the  more  democratic  and  peaceful 
States,  like  England  and  France,  are  rapidly  following  in 
the  same  direction.  Of  course,  as  Bismarck  said,  not  all  of 
a  large  army  can  be  so  used,  but  there  is  a  strong  tendency 
in  Russia  and  Germany,  which  may  be  imitated  elsewhere, 
for  the  military  leaders  to  concentrate  their  efforts  and 
attention  on  the  picked  and  more  or  less  professional  part 
of  their  armies,  and  it  is  this  part  that  is  being  used  for  strike- 
breaking purposes. 

No  one  has  dealt  more  ably  with  this  struggle  between  the 
working  people  and  coercive  government  than  Karl  Lieb- 
knecht,  recently  elected  to  the  Reichstag  from  the  Kaiser's 
own  district  of  Potsdam,  who  spent  a  year  as  a  political 


404  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

prisoner  in  Germany  for  his  "Militarismus  und  Anti-Militaris- 
mus."  Liebknecht  opens  his  pamphlet  by  quoting  a  state- 
ment of  Bismarck  to  Professor  Dr.  Otto  Kamaell,  in  October, 
1892 :  — 

"In  Rome  water  and  fire  were  forbidden  to  him  who  put  himself 
outside  of  the  legal  order.  In  the  middle  ages  that  was  called  to  out- 
law. It  was  necessary  to  treat  the  Social-Democracy  in  the  same 
way,  to  take  away  its  political  rights  and  its  right  to  vote.  So  far 
I  have  gone.  The  Social-Democratic  question  is  a  military  question. 
The  Social-Democracy  is  being  handled  now  in  an  extraordinarily 
superficial  way.  The  Social-Democracy  is  striving  now  —  and  with 
success  —  to  win  the  noncommissioned  officers.  In  Hamburg 
already  a  good  part  of  the  troops  consist  of  Social-Democrats,  since 
the  people  there  have  the  right  to  enter  exclusively  into  their  own 
battalion.  What  now  if  these  troops  should  refuse  to  shoot  their 
fathers  and  brothers  as  the  Kaiser  has  demanded  ?  Shall  we  send 
the  regiments  of  Hanover  and  Mecklenburg  against  Hamburg? 
Then  we  have  something  there  like  the  Commune  in  Paris.  The 
Kaiser  was  frightened.  He  said  to  me  he  wouldn't  exactly  care 
about  being  called  a  cardboard  prince  like  his  grandfather,  nor  at 
the  very  beginning  of  his  reign  to  wade  up  to  the  knees  in  blood. 
Then  I  said  to  him,  'Your  Majesty  will  have  to  go  deeper  if  you  give 
way  now.'" 

Here  we  have  it  from  the  lips  of  Bismarck  that  the  Social- 
Democratic  question  was  already  a  military  question  in  his 
time,  and  his  view  is  supported  by  the  present  Kaiser.  This  is 
high  authority.  Similar  views  and  threats  have  been  com- 
mon among  the  statesmen  of  our  time  in  nearly  every  coun- 
try. 

As  early  as  1903  the  government  of  Holland  broke  a  large 
general  strike  by  the  use  of  the  army  to  operate  the  railroads, 
and  the  same  thing  was  done  in  Hungary  in  the  following 
year.  Indeed,  these  measures  had  such  a  great  success  that 
the  Hungarian  government  went  farther  two  years  later, 
and  took  away  the  right  of  organization  from  the  agricultural 
laborers ;  while  at  the  same  time  it  used  the  army  as  strike 
breakers  in  harvest  time  and  made  permanent  arrangements 
for  doing  this  in  a  similar  contingency  in  the  future.  In 
the  matter  of  breaking  railway  strikes  by  soldiers,  Bulgaria 
and  other  countries  are  following  Holland  and  Hungary. 
The  latest  and  most  extraordinary  example  is  undoubtedly 
the  use  of  soldiers  by  the  "Socialist"  Briand  to  break  the 
recent  railroad  strike  in  democratic  France.  (3) 

Even  peaceful  countries  like  Belgium  and    Switzerland, 


DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  405 

Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States,  are  developing  and 
changing  their  military  systems  so  rapidly  as  to  make  it 
almost  certain  that  they  would  take  similar  measures  if 
occasion  should  arise. 

The  agitation  for  universal  conscription  in  England  may 
succeed  before  many  years,  and  the  plans  for  reorganizing 
the  militia  in  the  United  States  will  also  make  of  it  a  force 
that  can  be  far  more  useful  in  breaking  strikes  than  the  pres- 
ent one,  and  more  ready  to  be  used  in  case  of  a  nation-wide 
strike  crisis.  Indeed,  the  Dick  military  law  made  every 
possible  provision  for  the  use  of  the  military  in  internal 
disturbances,  up  to  the  point  of  enlisting  every  citizen  and 
making  a  dictator  of  the  President. 

Similar  tendencies  exist  on  the  Continent  of  Europe. 
Formerly  the  militia  of  Switzerland  was  quite  democratically 
organized,  and  each  man  kept  his  gun  and  ammunition  at 
home,  but  the  government  is  gradually  doing  away  with 
this  system  and  modeling  the  army  every  year  more  closely 
on  that  of  the  larger  and  less  democratic  European  powers. 
In  Belgium  a  similar  movement  can  be  seen  in  the  creation 
of  a  Citizens'  Guard,  entirely  for  use  at  home  and  especially 
against  strikers.  (3) 

Here,  then,  is  a  situation  to  which  every  Socialist  is  forced 
to  give  constant  thought,  no  matter  how  peace-loving  and 
law-abiding  he  may  be.  What  is  there  in  modern  systems 
of  government  to  prevent  these  large  military  forces  already 
employed  so  successfully  for  the  ominous  function  of  strike 
breaking,  from  being  used  for  other  reactionary  and  tyran- 
nical purposes  —  for  putting  an  end  to  democratic  government, 
.  when  it  is  attempted  to  apply  it  to  property  and  industry  ? 
So  everywhere  Socialists  and  labor  unions  are  giving  special 
attention  to  agitation  against  militarism.  Years  ago  even 
the  most  conservative  unions  began  forbidding  their  members 
to  join  the  militia,  and  the  practice  has  become  general, 
while  the  Boy  Scout  movement  is  everywhere  denounced 
and  repudiated.  Not  only  is  every  effort  being  made  by  the 
Socialists,  in  connection  with  other  democratic  elements, 
to  cut  off  the  financial  supplies  for  the  army  and  navy,  but 
they  also  sought  to  inspire  all  the  youth,  and  particularly 
the  children  of  the  workers,  with  a  spirit  of  revolt  against 
armies,  war,  and  aggressive  patriotism,  as  well  as  the  spirit 
of  servile  obedience,  the  ignorance,  and  the  brutality  that 
invariably  accompany  them. 


406  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

For  a  number  of  years  the  fight  against  militarism,  and 
incidentally  against  possible  wars,  has  occupied  the  chief 
attention  of  international  Socialist  congresses.  While  the 
Stuttgart  Congress  (1907)  did  not  accept  the  proposal  of 
the  French  delegates  that  in  case  of  war  an  international 
strike  and  insurrection  should  be  declared,  the  closing  part 
of  the  resolution  adopted  was  definitely  intended  to  suggest 
such  action  by  rehearsing  with  approval  the  various  cases 
where  the  working  people  had  already  made  steps  in  that 
direction,  and  by  advising  still  more  revolutionary  action  in 
the  future,  as  indicated  in  the  words  italicized. 

"The  International,"  it  said,  "is  unable  to  prescribe  one  set  mode 
of  action  to  the  working  classes ;  this  must  of  necessity  be  different 
in  different  lands,  varying  with  time  and  place.  But  it  is  clearly  its 
duty  to  encourage  the  working  classes  everywhere  in  their  opposition 
to  militarism.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  since  the  last  International 
Congress,  the  working  classes  have  adopted  various  ways  of  fighting 
militarism,  by  refusing  grants  for  military  and  naval  armaments,  and 
by  striving  to  organize  armies  on  democratic  lines.  They  have  been 
successful  in  preventing  outbreaks  of  war,  or  in  putting  an  end  to 
existing  war,  or  the  rumor  of  war.  We  may  mention  the  agree- 
ment entered  into  between  the  English  and  French  trade-unions 
after  the  Fashoda  incident,  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  peace 
and  for  reestablishing  friendly  relations  between  England  and 
France ;  the  policy  of  the  Social-Democratic  parties  in  the  French 
and  German  Parliaments  during  the  Morocco  crisis,  and  the  peace- 
ful declarations  which  the  Socialists  in  both  countries  sent  each 
other;  the  common  action  of  the  Austrian  and  Italian  Socialists, 
gathered  at  Trieste,  with  a  view  to  avoiding  a  conflict  between  the 
two  powers ;  the  great  efforts  made  by  the  Socialists  of  Sweden  to 
prevent  an  attack  on  Norway ;  and  lastly,  the  heroic  sacrifices  made 
by  the  Socialist  workers  and  peasants  of  Russia  and  Poland  in  the 
struggle  against  the  war  demon  let  loose  by  the  Czar,  in  their  efforts 
to  put  an  end  to  their  ravages,  and  at  the  same  time  to  utilize  the  crisis 
for  the  liberation  of  the  country  and  its  workers. 

"All  efforts  bear  testimony  to  the  growing  power  of  the  proletariat 
and  to  its  absolute  determination  to  do  all  it  can  in  order  to  obtain 
peace.  The  action  of  the  working  classes  in  this  direction  will  be 
even  more  successful  when  public  opinion  is  influenced  to  a  greater 
degree  than  at  present,  and  when  the  working-men's  parties  in  different 
lands  are  directed  and  instructed  by  the  International."  And  finally 
it  was  decided  to  try  to  take  advantage  of  the  profound  disturbances 
caused  by  every  war  to  hasten  the  abolition  of  capitalist  rule. 

The  International  Congress  of  1910  referred  back  to  the 
Socialist  parties  of  the  various  countries  for  further  considera- 


DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  407 

tion  a  resolution  proposed  by  the  French  and  English  dele- 
gates which  declared :  "Among  the  means  to  be  used  in  order 
to  prevent  and  hinder  war,  the  Congress  considers  as  particu- 
larly efficacious  the  general  strike,  especially  in  the  industries 
that  supply  war  with  its  implements  (arms  and  ammunition, 
transport,  etc.),  as  well  as  propaganda  and  popular  action 
in  their  active  forms." 

This  resolution  is  now  under  discussion.  In  referring  it 
to  the  national  parties,  the  International  Socialist  Bureau 
reminded  them  that  the  practical  measure  the  authors  of 
the  amendment  had  principally  in  view  was  "the  strike  of 
workingmen  who  were  employed  in  delivering  war  material." 
The  Germans  opposed  the  resolution  on  the  ground  that  a 
strike  of  this  kind,  guarded  against  by  the  government, 
would  have  to  become  general,  and  that  during  the  martial 
law  of  war  times  it  would  necessarily  mean  tremendous  vio- 
lence. They  contended  that  a  more  effective  means  of  pre- 
venting war,  until  the  Socialists  are  stronger,  is  to  vote  down 
all  taxes  and  appropriations  for  armies  and  navies.  And 
they  accused  the  British  Labourites  who  supported  this  reso- 
lution of  having  failed  to  vote  against  war  supplies,  while  the 
Germans  and  their  supporters  had.  This  accusation  was  true, 
as  against  the  British  Labourites,  but  did  not  apply  against 
the  French  and  other  Socialists  who  were  for  the  resolution. 

We  can  obtain  a  key  to  this  situation  only  by  examining 
the  varying  motives  of  reformists  and  revolutionaries.  The 
French  reformists,  followers  of  Jaures,  are  so  anxious  for 
peace,  that,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  many  capitalists, 
probably  a  majority,  now  also  favor  it,  they  are  ready  to  have 
the  working  people  -make  the  most  terrible  sacrifices  for  this 
semi-capitalistic  purpose.  (See  Part  II,  Chapter  V.)  The 
Germans  realize  that  the  capitalists  themselves  have  more 
and  more  reasons  for  avoiding  wars,  and,  being  satisfied  with 
their  present  political  prospects,  do  not  propose  to  risk 
them  —  or  their  necks  —  for  any  such  object.  The  French 
revolutionaries,  on  the  other  hand,  favor  extreme  measures, 
not  to  preserve  a  capitalistic  peace,  but  to  develop  the  gen- 
eral strike,  to  paralyze  armies,  and  encourage  their  demoraliza- 
tion and  dissolution.  They  want  to  parallel  all  plans  for 
mobilization  by  plans  for  insurrection,  and  to  force  armies  to 
disclose  their  true  purpose,  which  they  believe  is  not  war 
at  all,  but  the  arbitrary  and  violent  suppression  of  popular 
movements. 


408  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

Whether  capitalism  or  Socialism  puts  an  end  to  war, 
Socialists  generally  are  agreed  their  success  may  ultimately 
depend  on  their  ability  to  find  some  way  to  put  a  check  to 
militarism.  The  chief  means  by  which  this  is  likely  to  be 
accomplished,  they  believe,  is  by  the  spread  of  Socialism  and 
the  education  of  youth  and  even  of  children  in  the  principles 
of  international  working-class  solidarity,  always  to  put  the 
humanity  as  a  whole  above  one's  country,  always  to  despise 
and  revolt  against  all  kinds  of  government  by  violence. 
Karl  Liebknecht  remarks  that  "it  is  already  recognized  that 
every  Social-Democrat  educates  his  children  to  be  Social- 
Democrats."  But  he  says  that  this  is  not  sufficient.  Social- 
Democratic  parents  do  their  best,  but  the  Socialist  public 
must  aid  them  to  do  better.  In  other  words,  the  greatest 
hope  for  Socialism,  in  its  campaign  against  militarism  as 
in  all  else  it  undertakes,  lies  in  education. 

The  Socialist  movement,  even  if  it  becomes  some  day 
capable  of  forcing  concessions  from  the  capitalists  through 
their  fear  of  a  social  overturn,  depends  first,  last,  and  always 
upon  its  ability  to  teach  and  to  train  and  to  organize  the 
masses  of  the  people  to  solve  their  own  problems  without 
governmental  or  capitalistic  aid,  and  to  understand  that,  in 
order  to  solve  them  successfully,  they  must  be  able  to  take 
broad  and  far-sighted  views  of  all  the  political  and  economic 
problems  of  the  time. 

Especially  Socialists  undertake  to  enlighten  the  masses 
on  the  part  played  by  war  in  history  and  in  recent  times  — 
not  because  wars  are  necessarily  impending,  but  because  the 
war  talk  is  an  excuse  for  armies  that  really  serve  another 
purpose.  For  Socialists  believe  that  the  rule  of  society  by 
economic  classes,  and  rule  by  war  or  brute  force,  in  the 
Socialist  view,  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  No  Socialist 
has  expressed  this  view  more  clearly  or  forcefully  than  Mr. 
George  R.  Kirkpatrick,  in  his  recent  book,  "War  —  What 
For?"  Addressed  to  the  heart  as  well  as  to  the  head,  and 
based  upon  all  the  most  important  of  the  previous  attacks 
on  militarism  war,  whether  Socialist  or  not,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  any  non-Socialist  could  have  presented  as  power- 
ful an  argument.  Mr.  Kirkpatrick  gives  the  following 
interesting  outline  of  the  typical  Socialist  view  of  the 
development  of  primitive  warfare  into  modern  militarism 
and  of  slavery  into  the  present  industrial  system  (here 
abbreviated) :  — 


DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  409 

"For  a  long  time  in  these  intertribal  wars  it  was  the  practice  to 
take  no  prisoners  (except  the  younger  women),  but  to  kill,  kill,  kill, 
because  the  conquerors  had  no  use  for  the  captive  men.  When, 
however,  society  had  developed  industrially  to  a  stage  enabling  the 
victors  to  make  use  of  live  men  as  work  animals,  that  new  industrial 
condition  produced  a  new  idea  —  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  revo- 
lutionary ideas  that  ever  flashed  into  the  human  brain;  and  that 
idea  was  simply  this :  A  live  man  is  worth  more  than  a  dead  one, 
if  you  can  make  use  of  him  as  a  work  animal.  When  industrially 
it  became  practicable  for  the  conquerors  to  make  use  of  live  men 
captured  in  war,  it  rapidly  became  the  custom  to  take  prisoners,  save 
them  alive,  beat  them  into  submission  —  tame  them  —  and  thus 
have  them  for  work  animals,  human  work  animals. 

"  Here  the  human  ox,  yoked  to  the  burdens  of  the  world,  started 
through  the  centuries,  centuries  wet  with  tears  and  red  with  blood 
and  fire. 

"  Thus  originated  a  class  of  workers,  the  working  class. 

"  Thus  also  originated  the  ruling  class.  Thus  originated  the  'lead- 
ing citizens.' 

"  Thus  originally,  in  war,  the  workers  fell  into  the  bottomless  gulf 
of  misery.  It  was  thus  that  war  opened  wide  the  devouring  jaws 
of  hell  for  the  workers. 

"  Thus  was  human  society  long  ago  divided  into  industrial  classes 
—  into  two  industrial  classes. 

"  Of  course  the  interests  of  these  two  classes  were  in  fundamental 
conflict,  and  thus  originated  the  class  struggle. 

"  Of  course  the  ruling  class  were  in  complete  possession  and  control 
of  all  the  powers  of  government — and  of  course  they  had  sense 
enough  to  use  the  powers  of  government  to  defend  their  own  class  interests. 

"Of  course  the  ruling  class  made  all  the  laws  and  controlled  all 
institutions  in  the  interests  of  the  ruling  class  —  naturally."  (5) 

With  all  other  international  and  revolutionary  Socialists, 
Mr.  Kirkpatrick  believes  that  when  the  masses  are  edu- 
cated to  see  the  truth  of  this  view  and  have  learned  the 
true  nature  of  modern  industry,  class  government,  and 
armies,  they  will  put  an  end  to  them.  He  concludes :  — 

"The  working  class  men  inside  and  outside  the  army  are  confused. 

"They  do  not  understand. 

"But  they  will  understand. 

"AND  WHEN  THEY  DO  UNDERSTAND,  their  class  loyalty  and  class 
pride  will  astonish  the  world.  They  will  stand  erect  in  their  vast 
class  strength  and  defend  —  THEMSELVES.  They  will  cease  to  coax 
and  tease ;  they  will  make  demands  —  unitedly.  They  will  desert 
the  armory ;  they  will  spike  every  cannon  on  earth ;  they  will  scorn 
the  commander ;  they  will  never  club  nor  bayonet  another  striker ; 


410  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

and  in  the  legislatures  of  the  world  they  will  shear  the  fatted  para- 
sites from  the  political  and  industrial  body  of  society."  (6) 

Here  we  have  both  the  Socialist  point  of  view  and  a  glimpse 
of  the  passionate  feeling  that  accompanies  it.  "War  — 
What  For?"  has  been  circulated  by  scores  of  thousands 
among  the  working  people  and  in  the  army  and  navy. 

In  countries  like  America  and  England,  where  there  is  no 
compulsory  service,  the  practical  objective  of  such  agitation 
is  to  prevent  enlistment.  In  France,  Belgium,  and  Italy, 
where  there  is  compulsory  service,  the  Socialists  for  years 
have  been  preaching  openly  desertion  and  insubordination. 

Complaint  against  this  anti-military  propaganda  is  gen- 
eral in  United  States  army  and  navy  circles.  Recently  a 
general  in  Southern  California  was  said  by  the  press  to  have 
reported  to  Washington  that  the  distribution  of  one  circular 
had  dissuaded  many  men  from  joining  the  army.  The  cir- 
cular, which  was  published,  was  attributed,  whether  rightly 
or  not  we  do  not  know,  to  Jack  London.  It  ran  in  part :  — 

"Young  men,  the  lowest  aim  in  your  life  is  to  be  a  soldier.  The 
good  soldier  never  tries  to  distinguish  right  from  wrong.  He  never 
thinks ;  he  never  reasons ;  he  only  obeys.  If  he  is  ordered  to  fire  on 
his  fellow  citizens,  on  his  friends,  on  his  neighbors,  on  his  relatives, 
he  obeys  without  hesitation.  If  he  is  ordered  to  fire  down  a  crowded 
street  when  the  poor  are  clamoring  for  bread,  he  obeys,  and  sees  the 
gray  hair  of  age  stained  with  blood  and  the  life  tide  gushing  from 
the  breast  of  women,  feeling  neither  remorse  nor  sympathy.  If  he  is 
ordered  off  as  one  of  a  firing  squad  to  execute  a  hero  or  benefactor, 
he  fires  without  hesitation,  though  he  knows  that  the  bullet  will 
pierce  the  noblest  heart  that  ever  beat  in  a  human  breast. 

"A  good  soldier  is  a  blind,  heartless,  soulless,  murderous  machine. 
He  is  not  a  man.  He  is  not  even  a  brute,  for  brutes  only  kill  in  self- 
defense.  All  that  is  human  in  him,  all  that  is  divine  in  him,  all  that 
constitutes  the  man,  has  been  sworn  away  when  he  took  the  enlist- 
ment roll.  His  mind,  conscience,  aye,  his  very  soul,  is  in  the  keeping 
of  his  officer." 

This  language  will  appeal  to  many  as  extremely  violent, 
yet  it  is  no  stronger  than  that  of  Tolstoi,  while  Bernard 
Shaw  used  almost  identical  expressions  in  his  Preface  to 
"John  Bull's  Other  Island,"  without  anybody  suggesting 
that  they  were  treasonable. 

"The  soldier,"  said  Shaw,  "is  an  anachronism  of  which  we  must 
get  rid.  Among  people  who  are  proof  against  the  suggestions  of 
romantic  fiction  there  can  no  longer  be  any  question  of  the  fact  that 


DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  411 

military  service  produces  moral  imbecility,  ferocity,  and  cowardice. 
.  .  .  For  permanent  work  the  soldier  is  worse  than  useless;  such 
efficiency  as  he  has  is  the  result  of  dehumanization  and  disablement. 
His  whole  training  tends  to  make  him  a  weakling.  He  has  the  easiest 
of  lives ;  he  has  no  freedom  and  no  responsibility.  He  is  politically 
and  socially  a  child,  with  rations  instead  of  rights,  treated  like  a 
child,  punished  like  a  child,  dressed  prettily  and  washed  and  combed 
like  a  child,  excused  for  outbreaks  like  a  child,  forbidden  to  marry 
like  a  child,  and  called  Tommy  like  a  child.  He  has  no  real  work  to 
keep  him  from  going  mad  except  housemaid's  work." 

Mr.  Shaw's  words  are  identical  with  those  that  are  preached 
by  Socialists  every  day,  especially  on  the  Continent. 

"No  soldier  is  asked  to  think  for  himself,"  he  says,  "to  judge  for 
himself,  to  consult  his  own  honor  and  manhood,  to  dread  any  con- 
sequence except  the  consequence  of  punishment  to  his  own  person. 
The  rules  are  plain  and  simple ;  the  ceremonies  of  respect  and  sub- 
mission are  as  easy  and  mechanical  as  a  prayer  wheel,  the  orders 
are  always  to  be  obeyed  thoughtlessly,  however  inept  or  dishonorable 
they  may  be.  .  .  .  No  doubt  this  weakness  is  just  what  the  military 
system  aims  at,  its  ideal  soldier  being,  not  a  complete  man,  but  a 
docile  unit  or  cannon  fodder  which  can  be  trusted  to  respond 
promptly  and  certainly  to  the  external  stimulus  of  a  shouted  order, 
and  is  intimidated  to  the  pitch  of  being  afraid  to  run  away  from 
a  battle." 

Nor  is  Mr.  Shaw  less  sparing  to  the  officer,  and  he  repre- 
sents in  this  case  also  the  most  unanimous  Socialist  view :  — 

"If  he  [the  officer]  calls  his  men  dogs,"  says  Shaw,  "and  perverts 
a  musketry  drill  order  to  make  them  kneel  to  him  as  an  act  of  per- 
sonal humiliation,  and  thereby  provokes  a  mutiny  among  men  not 
yet  thoroughly  broken  in  to  the  abjectness  of  the  military  condition, 
he  is  not,  as  might  be  expected,  shot,  but,  at  the  worst,  reprimanded, 
whilst  the  leader  of  the  mutiny,  instead  of  getting  the  Victoria  Cross 
and  a  public  testimonial,  is  condemned  to  five  years'  penal  servitude 
by  Lynch  Law  (technically  called  martial  law)  administered  by  a 
trade  union  of  officers." 

Like  all  Socialists,  Mr.  Shaw  recognizes  that  the  evils  of 
militarism  rest  even  more  heavily  on  subject  peoples  than 
on  the  soldiers,  citizens,  or  taxpayers  of  the  dominating 
races.  He  says  of  the  officer  he  has  been  describing,  who  is 
humane  and  intelligent  in  civil  life,  that  in  his  military  capac- 
ity he  will  frantically  declare  that  "  he  dare  not  walk  about  in 


412  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

a  foreign  country  unless  every  crime  of  violence  against  an 
Englishman  in  uniform  is  punished  by  the  bombardment 
and  destruction  of  a  whole  village,  or  the  wholesale  flogging 
and  execution  of  every  native  in  the  neighborhood ;  and  also 
that  unless  he  and  his  fellow  officers 'have  power,  without 
the  intervention  of  a  jury,  to  punish  the  slightest  self-asser- 
tion or  hesitation  to  obey  orders,  however  grossly  insulting 
or  disastrous  those  orders  may  be,  with  sentences  which  are 
reserved  in  civil  life  for  the  worst  crimes,  he  cannot  secure 
the  obedience  and  respect  of  his  men,  and  the  country  would 
accordingly  lose  all  of  its  colonies  and  dependencies,  and  be 
helplessly  conquered  in  the  German  invasion  which  he  confi- 
dently expects  to  occur  in  the  course  of  a  fortnight  or  so." 

"That  is  to  say,"  Mr.  Shaw  continues,  "in  so  far  as  he  is  an 
ordinary  gentleman  he  behaves  sensibly  and  courageously ;  and  in  so 
far  as  he  is  a  military  man  he  gives  way  without  shame  to  the  grossest 
folly,  cruelty,  and  poltroonery.  If  any  other  profession  in  the  world 
had  been  stained  by  those  vices  and  by  false  witness,  forgery,  swin- 
dling, torture,  compulsion  of  men's  families  to  attend  their  executions, 
digging  up  and  mutilation  of  dead  enemies,  all  of  which  is  only  added 
to  the  devastation  proper  to  its  own  business,  as  the  military  profession 
has  been  within  recent  memory  in  England,  France,  and  the  United 
States  of  America  (to  mention  no  other  countries),  it  would  be  very 
difficult  to  induce  men  of  capacity  and  character  to  enter  it.  And  in 
England,  it  is,  in  fact,  largely  dependent  for  its  recruits  on  the  refuse 
of  industrial  life,  and  for  its  officers  on  the  aristocratic  and  plutocratic 
refuse  of  political  and  diplomatic  life,  who  join  the  army  and  pay 
for  their  positions  in  the  more  or  less  fashionable  clubs  which  the 
regimental  messes  provide  them  with  —  clubs,  which,  by  the  way, 
occasionally  figure  in  ragging  scandals  as  circles  of  extremely  coarse 
moral  character."  (6) 

It  is  not  surprising  that  those  who  view  armies  in  this  light 
preach  desertion  and  insubordination.  A  recent  cable  dis- 
patch sums  up  some  of  the  results  of  the  activity  in  this 
direction  of  the  French  Federation  of  Labor  with  its  million 
members,  and  of  the  Socialist  Party  with  its  still  larger 
following :  — 

"Last  year  there  were  13,500  desertions  and  53,000  who  refused 
to  answer  their  call  to  military  service.  Loss  to  France  in  1910,  two 
army  corps.  These  figures  are  given  by  La  France  Militaire,  a 
soldiers'  newspaper.  In  a  fund  called  'le  sou  du  soldat  et  des  in- 
soumis,'  the  idea  was  to  develop  antimilitarism  and  antipatriotism. 


DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  413 

Five  per  cent,  on  the  subscriptions  of  the  workmen,  belonging  to  the 
labor  unions,  was  ordered  to  be  set  apart  for  this  fund.  The  con- 
scripts before  departing  were  requested  to  leave  the  name  of  their 
regiment  and  their  number  so  that  sums  of  money  might  be  sent  to. 
them  for  antimilitary  propaganda  in  the  barracks.  For  eight  years 
that  sort  of  thing  has  been  going  on,  but  things  never  reached  to  the 
extent  they  do  now. 

"The  comrades  of  the  workshop  count  on  them  to  spread  among 
those  around  ideas  of  revolt  and  rebellion/  is  an  extract  from  a  letter 
read  by  M.  Georges  Berry  in  Parliament,  and  he  added  that  he  had 
a  score  of  such  letters  emanating  from  the  unions.  In  M.  Jaures's 
organ,  L  Humanite,  there  appeared  an  article  on  December  22, 1910, 
inviting  all  the  conscripts  of  the  Labor  Federation  to  send  in  their 
names  so  that  financial  aid  might  be  sent  to  help  them  in  organizing 
'insubordination  and  desertion.'" 

When  the  Caillaux  Ministry  came  into  power  in  1911,  a 
large  number  of  the  most  prominent  leaders  of  the  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  were  arrested  for  participation  in  this  agitation. 
But  for  every  arrest  many  other  unionists  signed  declarations 
favoring  identical  principles,  and  as  the  whole  Federation 
is  wedded  to  this  propaganda,  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  the 
whole  million  can  be  arrested  and  the  propaganda  done  away 
with. 

This  agitation  is  not  directed  primarily  against  possible 
war,  or  even  exclusively  against  compulsory  military  service. 
Just  as  the  preparations  for  an  insurrectionary  general  strike 
in  case  of  war  tend  to  break  down  the  power  and  prestige 
of  the  army,  even  if  war  is  never  declared,  so  the  teaching 
of  insubordination  and  desertion  have  the  same  effect,  even 
if  the  compulsory  armies  are  replaced  by  a  compulsory  militia, 
having  only  a  few  weeks  of  drill  every  year,  as  in  Australia, 
or  by  a  voluntary  militia,  as  in  this  country.  The  Socialist 
world  accepts  the  word  of  the  American  Socialists  that  a 
militia,  if  less  burdensome,  and  less  obnoxious  in  many  ways 
than  a  standing  army,  may  be  just  as  thoroughly  reactionary, 
and  quite  as  hostile  to  the  working  class.  The  French  So- 
cialists and  unionists  encourage  all  general  and  organized 
movements  among  common  soldiers.  And  their  ideal  in 
this  regard  is  reached  when  a  whole  body  of  soldiers,  for 
any  good  cause,  revolts  —  especially  at  a  time  of  popular 
demonstrations.  During  the  wine  troubles  in  the  south  of 
France,  a  whole  regiment  refused  to  march  —  and  for  years 
afterwards  was  toasted  at  Socialist  gatherings. 


414  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

"Military  strikes"  have  also  been  frequent  in  Russia  as 
well  as  in  France  —  and  have  received  the  unanimous 
approval  of  the  Socialists  of  all  countries.  No  matter  how 
small  the  causes,  Socialists  usually  justify  them,  because  they 
consider  military  discipline  in  itself  wholly  an  evil  —  and  the 
worst  tyranny  of  capitalist  government.  They  promote 
military  revolts  in  favor  of  great  popular  causes  for  a  double 
reason,  and  they  also  have  a  double  motive  for  supporting 
purely  military  revolts  against  militarism.  For  if  Socialists 
are  engaged  in  a  class  war,  which  practically  all  of  them 
believe  may,  and  many  believe  must,  lead  to  revolution,  it  is 
as  necessary  to  disarm  the  opposing  classes  as  it  is  to  abolish 
military  discipline  because  of  its  inherent  evil.  It  is  this 
fact  that  explains  the  importance  of  all  Socialist  efforts 
against  imperialism,  colonialism,  nationalism,  patriotism, 
war  and  armies  —  and  not  the  idea,  common  among  Social- 
ists, that  Socialism  alone  can  be  relied  on  to  establish  per- 
manent international  peace. 

Moreover,  the  most  successful  attacks  on  existing  govern- 
ments in  their  coercive  and  arbitrary  aspects,  as  the  Stutt- 
gart resolution  suggests  (see  above),  have  been  when  there 
were  threats  of  an  unpopular  war.  The  Socialist  attack  is 
then  not  only  leveled  against  war,  but  also  against  armies. 
A  good  example  is  the  sending  of  a  delegation  of  working- 
men  to  Berlin  by  the  French  federation  at  the  invitation  of 
that  of  Germany  at  the  time  of  the  Morocco  affair  (July, 
1911).  There  the  Secretary  of  the  associated  labor  councils 
of  France,  Yvetot,  made  a  speech,  the  importance  of  which 
was  fully  appreciated  by  the  German  government,  which 
ordered  him  to  be  immediately  expelled.  His  remarks  were 
also  appreciated  by  his  German  Socialist  audience  which 
responded  to  them  by  stormy  applause  lasting  several  min- 
utes. The  sentiments  so  widely  appreciated  were  contained 
in  the  following  remarks  addressed  to  the  French  and  Ger- 
man governments :  — 

"Just  try  once,  you  blockheads,  to  stir  up  one  people  against  the 
other,  to  arm  one  people  against  the  other,  you  will  see  if  the  peoples 
won't  make  an  entirely  different  use  of  the  weapons  you  put  into 
their  hands.  Wait  and  see  if  the  people  don't  go  to  war  against  an 
entirely  different  enemy  than  you  expect." 

The  significance  of  this  declaration  was  not  that  it  declared 
war  against  war,  but  that,  under  a  certain  highly  probable 


DEFENSE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  415 

contingency  of  the  immediate  future,  it  prepared  the  minds 
of  the  people  for  the  forceful  overthrow  of  capitalist  gov- 
ernments. 

To  the  preparations  of  capitalist  governments  to  revert 
to  military  rule  in  the  case  of  a  successful  nation-wide  gen- 
eral strike,  the  Socialists  reply  at  present  by  plans  for  weaken- 
ing and  disintegrating  armies.  And  they  do  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  they  will  use  more  active  measures  if  capitalist 
governments  persist  in  what  seems  to  be  their  present 
determination  to  resort  to  some  form  of  military  despotism 
when  the  Socialists  have  won  over  a  majority  of  the  popula- 
tion to  their  views. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION 

"THE  legal  constitution  of  every  period,"  says  Rosa  Lux- 
emburg, "is  solely  a  product  of  revolution.  While  revolu- 
tion is  the  political  act  of  creation  of  class  history,  legislation 
is  the  continued  political  growth  of  society.  The  work  of 
legal  reform  has  in  itself  no  independent  driving  force  out- 
side of  the  revolution ;  it  moves  during  each  period  of  history 
only  along  that  line  and  for  that  period  of  time  for  which  the 
impetus  given  to  it  during  the  last  revolution  continues,  or, 
to  speak  concretely,  it  moves  only  in  the  frame  of  that 
form  of  society  which  was  brought  into  the  world  through 
the  last  overturn.  .  .  .  Therefore,  the  person  who  speaks 
for  the  method  of  legal  reform  instead  of  the  conquest  of  political 
power  and  the  overthrow  of  [present  day]  society  is  not  as  a 
matter  of  fact  seeking,  in  a  quieter,  safer,  and  slower  way,  the 
same  goal,  but  a  different  goal  altogether;  namely,  instead  of 
bringing  about  a  new  social  order,  merely  the  accomplishing 
of  unessential  changes  in  the  old  one."  (1) 

It  is  not  that  Rosa  Luxemburg  or  any  other  prominent 
Socialist  underestimates  the  importance  to  the  Socialist 
movement  of  universal  suffrage,  and  of  the  utli/ation  of  our 
more  or  less  democratic  governments  for  the  purpose  of 
reform.  She  realizes  that  such  democracy  as  we  have  to- 
day is  useful  to-day,  and  that  in  a  future  crisis  it  may  serve 
as  a  lever  for  overturning  the  present  social  order.  "Democ- 
racy is  indispensable,"  she  says,  "not  because  it  makes  the 
conquest  of  political  power  by  the  working  class  superfluous, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  because  it  makes  this  seizure  of  power 
not  only  necessary,  but  the  only  remaining  alternative." 

From  Kautsky  and  Bebel,  who  have  always  been  known 
as  strong  believers  in  the  possibilities  of  political  action,  to 
the  somewhat  skeptical  revolutionary  Socialists  of  France, 
the  ballot  has  thus  far  remained  the  weapon  of  first  practical 
importance,  even  for  revolutionary  purposes.  Bebel  expects 
some  day  a  great  crisis  which  will  go  far  beyond  the  power 

416 


POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION          417 

of  any  merely  political  means  to  solve.  Kautsky  looks  for- 
ward to  more  than  one  great  conflict,  in  which  other  means 
will  have  to  be  employed,  as  does  also  his  Socialist  critic 
and  opponent,  Jaures.  But  for  the  present  all  these  men  are 
occupying  themselves  with  politics. 

Even  those  Socialists  who  are  most  skeptical  of  the  revo- 
lutionary possibilities  of  political  action  by  no  means  turn 
their  back  upon  it.  The  French  advocate  of  economic 
action  and  revolutionary  labor  unionism,  Lagardelle,  who 
recently  surprised  some  of  his  French  comrades,  as  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  by  running  as  a  candidate  for  the  French 
Chamber,  claimed  that  he  did  this  in  entire  consistency  with 
his  principles.  And  even  the  arch-revolutionary,  Gustave 
Henre",  has  declared  that  in  spite  of  all  the  faults  and  limi- 
tations of  political  action,  revolutionary  Socialists  must  cling 
to  the  Socialist  Party.  Herv6  had  looked  with  a  favorable 
eye  on  the  formation  of  a  revolutionary  organization  which 
was  to  consist  only  in  part  of  Socialists  and  in  part  of  revo- 
lutionary labor  unionists,  but  he  declared  at  the  last  moment 
that  such  an  organization  ought  to  be  only  a  group  within 
the  Socialist  Party.  A  bitter  critic  of  Jaures  and  also  of  the 
orthodox  "center"  of  the  party  on  the  ground  that  their, 
methods  are  too  timid  to  achieve  anything  for  Socialism  in 
view  of  the  ruthless  aggressions  of  the  capitalists,  Herv6 
nevertheless  said  that  it  was  only  very  exceptional  circum- 
stances that  could  justify  revolutionary  Socialists  acting 
against  the  party  organization,  even  though  it  seemed  to 
be  doing  so  little  effective  fighting  against  the  capitalist 
enemy. 

There  could  be  no  stronger  evidence  of  the  powerful  hold 
of  political  action  even  on  the  most  revolutionary  Socialists 
than  the  summary  in  which  Herv6  reviews  his  reasons  for 
this  conclusion :  — 

"  First :  That  the  only  manner  of  agitating  for  anti-parliamentar- 
ism that  succeeds,  and  is  without  danger,  is  before  and  after  electoral 
periods  —  showing  constantly  to  the  elite  of  the  proletariat  the  in- 
sufficiency and  dangers  of  parliamentarism  in  general  and  parlia- 
mentarist  Socialism  in  particular; 

' '  Second :  During  electoral  periods  all  propaganda  disparaging  the 
possibilities  of  politics  unaided  by  other  forms  of  action  should 
cease,  'in  order  not  to  embroil  ourselves  with  the  Socialist  masses 
who  must  be  handled  carefully  at  any  cost,  in  the  interest  of  the 
revolutionary  cause ' ; 

2E 


418  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

"  Third:  While  the  revolutionary  Socialists'  discontent  with  the 
party's  moderation  and  exclusive  absorption  in  the  details  of  politics 
or  reform  ought  not  to  lead  them  to  oppose  the  organization  during 
election  periods,  it  does  not  follow  that  revolutionary  Socialists  can 
not  even  at  such  times  continue  to  preach  their  principles  and  pro- 
claim their  hatred  to  the  conservative  parties  and  their  attitude  to- 
wards the  Parliamentary  Socialist  Party  'of  sympathy  mixed  with 
distrust'; 

"  Fourth:  An  exception  should  be  made  against  certain  Socialist 
candidates  who  may  have  taken  a  scandalously  conservative  anti- 
labor  and  anti-revolutionary  position  in  the  legislative  session  just 
gone  by,  and  that  against  the  latter  there  should  be  a  fight  to  the 
finish,  certain  as  we  are  of  having  with  us  almost  the  entire  support 
of  the  parliamentary  Socialist  Party."  (2) 

In  a  word,  Herve*  proves  his  democracy  by  respecting  the 
opinion  of  the  majority  of  the  Socialist  Party,  because  he 
hopes  and  believes  that  it  will  become  revolutionary  in  his 
sense  of  the  word.  With  a  strong  preference  for  "direct 
action,"  strikes,  "sabotage,"  boycotts,  etc.,  he  yet  allows  his 
policies  to  be  guided  very  largely  by  a  political  organization. 

But  Socialist  politics  are  not  politics  at  all  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word.  They  are  directed  primarily  to  prepare 
the  people  for  a  great  struggle  to  come.  "Situations  are 
approaching,"  said  Bebel  at  the  Congress  at  Jena,  in  1905, 
"which  must  of  physical  necessity  lead  to  catastrophes  unless 
the  working  class  develop  so  rapidly  in  power,  numbers, 
culture,  and  insight,  that  the  bourgeoisie  lose  the  desire  for 
catastrophes.  We  are  not  seeking  a  catastrophe,  —  what 
use  would  it  be  to  us  ?  Catastrophes  are  brought  about  by 
the  ruling  classes."  Bebel  was  referring  particularly  to  the 
possibility  and  even  the  probability  that  the  German  gov- 
ernment might  try  to  destroy  the  Socialist  Party  by  limiting 
the  right  of  suffrage  or  to  crush  the  unions  by  limiting  the 
right  of  labor  to  organize.  If  he  predicted  a  revolutionary 
crisis,  it  was  to  come  from  a  life-and-death  struggle  of  the 
working  people  in  self-defense,  in  a  desperate  effort  to  pro- 
tect economic  and  political  rights,  but  especially  political 
rights,  which,  as  the  labor  unionist,  von  Elm,  said  at  this 
congress,  were  "the  key  to  all."  A  revolutionary  conflict 
was  anticipated,  to  be  fought  out  by  economic  means,  but 
only  as  part  of  a  political  crisis  —  in  which  the  majority  of 
the  people  would  be  on  the  side  of  the  Socialists  and  the  labor 
unions.  Similarly,  in  America,  Mr.  Victor  Berger  stated 


POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION          419 

at  the  Socialist  Convention  of  1908  that  he  had  no  doubt  that 
"in  order  to  be  able  to  shoot  even,  some  day,  we  must  have 
the  powers  of  the  political  government  in  our  hands,  at  least 
to  a  great  extent." 

While  neither  the  political  revolution  involved  in  the  cap- 
ture of  government  by  Socialist  voters,  nor  the  economic 
revolution  that  would  follow  a  wholly  successful  general 
strike  would  lead  necessarily  to  revolution  in  its  narrow  sense 
of  a  great  but  relatively  brief  crisis,  or  to  revolutionary  vio- 
lence; while  either  political  or  economic  overturn,  or  both, 
combined  in  a  single  movement,  might  be  accomplished  peace- 
fully and  by  degrees,  capitalist  governments  are  just  as 
likely  to  seize  the  one  as  the  other,  as  the  occasion  for  attempts 
at  violent  repression.  A  complete  political  victory  would 
thus  lead  to  the  same  crisis  and  violence  as  a  victorious  gen- 
eral strike. 

As  Bebel  says,  Socialists  are  not  trying  to  create  a  revolu- 
tionary crisis.  But  they  have  little  doubt  that  the  capital- 
ists themselves  will  precipitate  one  as  soon  as  Socialism 
becomes  truly  menacing,  as  may  happen  within  a  few  years 
in  some  countries.  "The  politicians  of  the  ruling  class  have 
reached  a  condition  where  they  are  ready  to  risk  everything 
upon  a  single  throw  of  the  dice,"  says  Kautsky,  on  the  suppo- 
sition that  Socialism  is  already  a  real  menace  in  Germany. 
"They  would  rather  take  their  chances  in  a  civil  war  than 
endure  the  fear  of  a  revolution,"  he  continues.  "The 
Socialists  on  the  other  hand,  not  only  have  no  reason  to 
follow  suit  in  this  policy  of  desperation,  but  should  rather 
seek  by  every  means  in  their  power  to  postpone  any  such 
insane  uprising  [of  the  capitalists]  even  if  it  be  recognized 
as  inevitable,  to  a  time  when  the  proletariat  will  be  so  power- 
ful as  to  be  able  at  once  to  whip  the  enraged  [capitalist] 
mob,  and  to  restrain  it,  so  that  the  one  paroxysm  shall  be  its 
last,  and  the  destruction  that  it  brings  and  the  sacrifice  it 
costs  shall  be  as  small  as  possible."  (3) 

The  majority  of  Socialists  have  no  inclination  towards 
violence  of  any  kind  at  the  present  time,  whether  domestic 
or  foreign,  and  will  avoid  it  also  for  all  time  if  they  can.  But 
they  fear  and  expect  that  the  present  ruling  class  will  under- 
take violent  measures  of  repression  which  will  inevitably 
result  in  a  conflict  of  physical  force. 

The  Civic  Federation,  of  which  so  many  conspicuous 
Americans  have  been  members  (including  Grover  Cleveland, 


420  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

Andrew  Carnegie,  August  Belmont,  Seth  Low,  Nicholas 
Murray  Butler,  and  other  prominent  philanthropists,  edu- 
cators, statesmen,  publicists,  and  multimillionaires),  had  its 
earliest  origin,  to  the  author's  personal  knowledge,  partly 
in  an  effort  to  divert  the  energies  of  the  working  people  from 
Socialism  and  revolutionary  unionism  to  the  conservative 
trade  unionism  of  the  older  British  type.  It  was  natural 
that  this  organization  should  give  more  and  more  of  its 
attention  to  an  organized  warfare  against  the  Socialist  move- 
ment as  the  latter  continued  to  grow,  and  this  it  has  done. 
Its  members  have  attacked  the  movement  from  every  quarter, 
accusing  it  of  a  tendency  to  undermine  religion,  the  family, 
and  true  patriotism.  But  the  most  direct  and  important 
accusation  it  has  made  has  been  that  the  Socialists  are  work- 
ing toward  revolutionary  violence.  In  its  official  organ  it 
has  quoted  Mr.  Debs  as  saying:  "When  the  revolution 
comes  we  will  be  prepared  to  take  possession  and  assume 
control  of  every  industry."  The  quotation  is  fairly  chosen, 
and  represents  the  Socialist  standpoint,  but  if  it  is  to  be 
thoroughly  understood  it  must  be  taken  in  connection  with 
other  positions  taken  by  the  party.  No  revolution  is  con- 
templated, other  than  one  of  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  people,  nor  is  any  violence  expected,  other  than  such 
that  may  be  instigated  by  a  privileged  minority  in  order  to 
prevent  the  majority  from  gaining  control  of  the  government 
and  industries  of  the  country. 

That  the  Civic  Federation  writers  also  understand  that 
the  violence  may  come  from  above  rather  than  from  below 
is  clearly  shown  in  the  context  of  the  article  in  question. 
The  Federation  organ  also  attacks  Mrs.  J.  G.  Phelps  Stokes 
for  having  said,  at  Barnard  College,  that  the  present  govern- 
ment would  probably  be  overturned  by  the  ballot.  In  answer 
to  this,  the  Federation's  organ  said,  "Mrs.  Stokes  is  a  woman 
of  intelligence  and  doubtless  knows  that  States  are  not  over- 
turned by  ballots."  Here  is  a  categorical  denial  on  the  part 
of  an  organ  representing  the  most  powerful  privileged  ele- 
ment in  the  country,  of  the  possibility  of  peaceful  political 
revolution,  which  can  only  mean  that  if  a  majority  desires 
such  a  peaceful  revolutionary  change,  the  minority  now  in 
power  will  use  violence  to  prevent  it.  An  article  by  one  of 
the  Federation's  officials,  Ada  C.  Sweet,  in  the  same  number, 
makes  still  further  disclosures.  Among  the  "fantastic  proj- 
ects and  schemes  of  Socialism,"  she  says,  are  the  demand 


POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION          421 

"that  the  Constitution  be  made  amendable  by  a  majority 
vote,"  and  the  demand  for  the  abolition  of  that  feature  of 
pur  government  "which  makes  the  Supreme  Court  the  final 
interpreter  and  guardian  of  the  federal  Constitution." 
These  demands,  of  course,  are  becoming  common  outside  of 
the  Socialist  Party,  and  would  simply  move  the  United  States 
up  to  the  semi-democratic  level  of  constitutions  made  during 
the  last  half  century.  Indeed,  the  judicial  precedents  that 
have  created  an  oligarchy  of  judges  in  this  country,  though 
they  have  existed  for  a  century,  have  never  been  imitated 
by  any  country  on  earth,  civilized  or  uncivilized,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Australia.  It  is  these  demands,  which 
would  not  be  held  even  as  radical  in  other  countries,  which 
Miss  Sweet  says  cannot  be  accomplished  without  violence.  If 
this  is  so,  it  means  that  violence  will  come  from  above,  and 
the  Socialists  would  be  cowards  indeed  if  they  were  not 
ready  to  resist  it. 

Miss  Sweet  contends  that  "to  bring  about  the  first  prac- 
tical experiments"  demanded  by  Socialism  "would  start 
such  a  civil  war  as  the  world  has  never  yet  seen  in  all  its  long 
history."  (4)  No  doubt  the  writer,  who  has  held  a  respon- 
sible position  with  the  Civic  Federation  for  years,  represents 
the  opinions  of  her  associates.  Her  prediction  may  be  correct, 
and  if  so  it  would  indicate  that  the  people  who  at  present 
control  this  country  and  its  government,  and  who  have  the 
power  to  initiate  such  a  civil  war,  are  determined  to  do  so. 

While  Socialists  have  no  desire  for  revolutionary  vio- 
lence, being  convinced,  as  they  are,  that  the  present  generation 
will  see  the  majority  of  the  voters  of  every  modern  country 
in  their  ranks,  and  Socialists  by  right  in  possession  of  the 
legal  powers  of  government,  they  nevertheless  have  never 
been  blind  to  the  readiness  of  the  plutocratic  and  militaristic 
forces  in  control  of  governments  to  proceed  to  illegal  coups 
d'etat,  to  destroy  all  vestiges  of  democracy,  if  thought  neces- 
sary, and  to  use  every  form  of  violence,  as  soon  as  they  feel 
that  they  are  beginning  to  lose  their  political  power.  The 
evidence  that  this  is  already  the  intention  is  abundant. 

There  is  no  one  who  has  recognized  more  clearly  than  the 
recent  "Socialistic"  Prime  Minister  of  France  (Briand) 
that  the  ruling  classes  force  the  people  to  fight  for  every 
great  advance.  In  the  French  Socialist  Congress  of  Paris, 
in  1899,  Briand  said:  "Now  I  must  reply  to  those  of  my 
friends  who  through  an  instinctive  horror  of  every  kind  of 


422  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

violence  have  been  brought  to  hope  that  the  transformation 
of  society  can  be  the  work  of  evolution  alone.  .  .  .  Such 
certainly  are  beautiful  dreams,  but  they  are  only  dreams. 
...  In  a  general  way,  in  every  instance,  history  demon- 
strates that  the  people  have  scarcely  obtained  anything 
except  what  they  have  been  able  to  take  for  themselves.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  through  a  fad,  and  much  less  through  the  love  of 
violence,  that  our  party  is  and  must  remain  revolutionary, 
but  by  necessity,  one  might  say  by  destiny.  ...  In  our 
Congress  we  have  even  pointed  out  forms  of  revolt,  among 
the  first  of  which  are  the  general  strike."  In  the  Interna- 
tional Congress  at  Paris  in  1900,  Briand  again  advocated 
the  general  strike  on  the  ground  that  it  was  "necessary  as  a 
pressure  on  capitalistic  society,  indispensable  for  obtaining 
continued  ameliorations  of  a  political  and  economic  kind, 
and  also,  under  propitious  circumstances,  for  the  purposes 
of  social  revolution."  Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  as  to  the 
revolutionary  meaning  of  Briand  when  he  advocated  the 
general  strike.  In  1899  he  had  said,  "One  can  discuss  a  strike 
of  soldiers,  one  can  even  try  to  make  ready  for  it  ...  our 
young  military  Socialists  busy  themselves  in  making  the 
workingman  who  is  going  to  quit  his  shop,  and  the  peasant 
who  is  going  to  desert  his  fields  to  go  into  the  barracks, 
understand  that  there  are  duties  higher  than  those  discipline 
would  like  to  impose  upon  them."  I  have  already  quoted 
his  recommendation,  made  on  this  occasion,  that  in  the  case 
of  a  social  crisis  the  soldiers  might  fire,  but  need  not  necessarily 
fire  in  the  direction  suggested  by  the  officers.  As  late  as 
1903  he  took  up  the  defense  of  Gustave  Herv6,  when  the 
latter  was  accused  of  anti-militarism,  and  said  before  the 
court:  "I  am  glad  to  declare  that  I  am  not  led  here  by  a 
chance  client,  I  am  not  here  to-day  as  an  advocate  pleading 
for  his  clients.  I  am  here  in  a  complete  and  full  community 
of  ideas  with  friends,  for  whom  it  is  less  important  that  I 
should  defend  their  liberty,  than  that  I  should  explain  and 
justify  their  thought  and  their  writings." 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  opinions  expressed  by 
Briand  at  this  time  are  approximately  those  of  the  majority 
of  the  European  Socialists  to-day.  Some  of  the  leading 
spokesmen  of  the  Socialists  are  no  doubt  somewhat  more 
cautious  of  the  form  of  their  statements.  But  the  modifi- 
cations they  would  make  in  Briand's  statement  would  be 
due,  not  to  any  objection  in  principle,  but  to  expediency  and 


POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION          423 

the  practical  limitations  of  such  measures  as  he  advocates 
in  each  given  case. 

The  great  majority  of  Socialists  feel  that  a  premature 
revolutionary  crisis  at  the  present  moment  would  endanger 
or  postpone  the  success  of  a  political  revolution,  peaceful  or 
otherwise,  when  the  time  for  it  is  ripe.  The  position  of 
Kautsky  will  show  how  very  cautious  the  most  influential 
are.  The  movement  has  become  so  strong  in  Germany  that  it 
might  be  supposed  that  the  German  Socialists  would  no  longer 
fear  a  test  of  strength.  But  this  is  not  the  case.  They  feel, 
on  the  contrary  that  every  delay  is  in  their  favor,  as  they  are 
making  colossal  strides  in  then*  organization  and  propaganda, 
while  the  political  situation  is  becoming  more  and  more 
critical. 

"Our  recruiting  ground,"  says  Kautsky,  "to-day  includes  fully 
three  fourths  of  the  population,  probably  even  more ;  the  number 
of  votes  that  are  given  to  us  do  not  equal  one  third  of  all  the  voters 
and  not  one  fourth  of  all  those  entitled  to  vote.  But  the  rate  of 
progress  increases  with  a  leap  when  the  revolutionary  spirit  is  abroad. 
It  is  almost  inconceivable  with  what  rapidity  the  mass  of  the  people 
reach  a  clear  consciousness  of  their  class  interests  at  such  a  time. 
Not  alone  their  courage  and  their  belligerency,  but  their  political 
interest  as  well,  is  spurred  on  in  the  highest  degree  through  the  con- 
sciousness that  the  hour  has  at  last  come  for  them  to  burst  out  of 
the  darkness  of  night  into  the  glory  of  the  full  glare  of  the  sun.  Even 
the  laziest  become  industrious,  even  the  most  cowardly  become 
brave,  and  even  the  most  narrow  gains  a  wider  view.  In  such  times 
a  single  year  will  accomplish  an  education  of  the  masses  that  would 
otherwise  have  required  a  generation."  (5) 

Kautsky's  conception  of  the  probable  struggle  of  the  future 
shows  that,  together  with  the  millions  of  Socialists  he  repre- 
sents, he  expects  the  great  crisis  to  develop  gradually  put 
of  the  present-day  struggle.  He  does  not  expect  a  precipi- 
tate and  comparatively  brief  struggle  like  the  French  Revo- 
lution, but  rather  "long-drawn-out  civil  wars,  if  one  does  not 
necessarily  give  to  these  words  the  idea  of  actual  slaughter 
and  battles." 

"We  are  revolutionists,"  Kautsky  concludes,  "and  this  is 
not  in  the  sense  that  a  steam  engine  is  a  revolutionist.  The 
social  transformation  for  which  we  are  striving  can  be  attained 
only  through  a  political  revolution,  by  means  of  the  conquest 
of  political  power  by  the  fighting  proletariat.  The  only 


424  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

form  of  the  State  in  which  Socialism  can  be  realized  is  that  of 
a  republic,  and  a  thoroughly  democratic  republic  at  that. 

"The  Socialist  Party  is  a  revolutionary  party,  but  not  a 
revolution-making  party.  We  know  that  our  goal  can  be 
obtained  only  through  a  revolution.  We  also  know  that  it 
is  just  as  little  in  our  power  to  create  this  revolution  as  it  is 
in  the  power  of  our  opponents  to  prevent  it."  (6) 

The  influential  French  Socialist,  Guesde,  agrees  with 
Kautsky  that  a  peaceful  solution  is  highly  improbable,  and 
that  the  revolution  must  be  one  of  an  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  people,  not  artificially  created,  but  brought  about  by 
the  ruling  classes  themselves. 

Of  course  a  peaceful  revolution  might  be  accomplished 
gradually  and  by  the  most  orderly  means.  If,  however, 
these  peaceful  and  legal  means  are  later  made  illegal,  or 
widely  interfered  with,  if  the  ballot  is  qualified  or  political 
democracy  otherwise  thwarted,  or  if  the  peaceful  acts  of 
labor  organizations,  with  the  extension  of  government  own- 
ership, are  looked  upon  as  mutiny  or  treason,  —  then  un- 
doubtedly the  working  people  will  regard  as  enemies  those 
who  attempt  to  legalize  such  reaction,  and  will  employ  all 
available  means  to  overthrow  a  "government"  of  such  a  kind. 

From  Marx  and  Bebel  none  of  the  most  prominent  spokes- 
men of  the  international  movement  have  doubted  that  the 
capitalists  would  use  such  violent  and  extreme  measures 
as  to  create  a  world-wide  counter-revolution,  and  began  to 
make  their  preparations  accordingly.  This  is  why,  half  a 
century  ago,  they  passed  beyond  mere  "revolutionary  talk," 
to  "revolutionary  action."  This  practical  "revolutionary 
evolution,"  as  he  called  it,  was  described  by  Marx  (in  resign- 
ing from  a  communist  society)  in  1851 :  "We  say  to  the  work- 
ing people,  'You  will  have  to  go  through  ten,  fifteen,  fifty 
years  of  civil  wars  and  wars  between  nations  not  only  to  change 
existing  conditions,  but  to  change  yourselves  and  to  make  your- 
selves worthy  of  political  power.'  '•  (My  italics.) 

"Revolutionary  evolution"  means  that  Socialists  expect, 
not  a  single  crisis,  but  a  long-drawn-out  series  of  revolutionary, 
political,  civil,  and  industrial  conflicts.  If  we  substitute  for 
the  insurrectionary  civil  wars  of  Marx's  time,  i.e.  of  the  periods 
of  1848  and  1870,  the  industrial  civil  wars  to-day,  i.e.  the  more 
and  more  widespread  and  successful,  the  more  and  more 
general,  strikes  that  we  have  been  witnessing  since  1900,  in 
countries  so  widely  separated  and  representative  as  France, 


POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION          425 

England,  Sweden,  Portugal,  and  Russia  and  Argentine  Re- 
public, Marx's  view  is  that  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
Socialists  to-day.(0) 

The  suppression  of  such  widespread  strikes  will  become 
especially  costly  as  "State  Socialism"  brings  a  larger  and 
larger  proportion  of  the  wage  earners  under  its  policy  of 
"  efficiency  wages,"  so  that  their  incomes  will  be  considerably 
above  the  mere  subsistence  level.  A  large  part  of  these  in- 
creased wages  can  and  doubtless  will  be  used  against  capi- 
talism. Socialists  believe  that  strikes  will  become  more  and 
more  extended  and  protracted,  until  the  capitalists  will  be 
forced,  sooner  or  later,  either  to  repressive  violence,  or  to 
begin  to  make  vital  economic  or  political  concessions  that 
will  finally  insure  their  unconditional  surrender. 

Already  many  non-Socialist  observers  have  firmly  grasped 
the  meaning  of  revolutionary  Socialism.  As  a  distinguished 
American  editor  recently  remarked,  "Universal  suffrage  and 
universal  education  mean  universal  revolution;  it  may  be  —  • 
pray  God  it  be  not  —  a  revolution  of  brutality  and  crime."  (7) 
The  ruling  minority  have  put  down  revolutions  in  the  past 
by  "brutality  and  crime"  under  the  name  of  martial  "law." 
Socialists  have  new  evidences  every  day  that  similar  measures 
will  be  used  against  them  in  the  future,  from  the  moment  their 
power  becomes  formidable. 

(°)  A  leading  article  of  the  official  weekly  of  the  German  Socialist  Party 
on  the  eve  of  the  elections  of  1912  gives  the  strongest  possible  evidence  that 
the  German  Socialists  regard  the  ballot  primarily  as  a  means  to  revolution. 
The  article  is  written  by  Franz  Mehring,  the  historian  of  the  German  move- 
ment, and  its  leading  argument  is  to  be  found  in  the  following  paragraphs :  — 

"The  more  votes  the  Social-Democracy  obtains  in  these  elections,  the 
more  difficult  it  will  be  for  the  Reaction  to  carry  out  exceptional  laws  [refer- 
ring to  Bismarck's  legislation  practically  outlawing  the  Socialists],  and  the 
more  this  miserable  weapon  will  become  for  them  a  two-edged  sword.  Cer- 
tainly it  will  come  to  that  [anti-Socialist  legislation]  in  the  end,  for  no  one 
in  possession  of  his  five  senses  believes  that,  when  universal  suffrage  sends  a 
Social-Democratic  majority  to  the  Reichstag,  the  ruling  classes  will  say  with 
a  polite  bow :  '  Go  ahead,  Messrs.  Workingmen ;  you  have  won,  now  please 
proceed  as  you  think  best.'  Sooner  or  later  the  possessing  classes  will  begin 
a  desperate  game,  and  it  is  as  necessary  for  the  working  classes  to  be  pre- 
pared for  this  event  as  it  would  be  madness  for  them  to  strengthen  the  posi- 
tion of  their  enenies  by  laying  down  their  arms.  It  can  only  be  to  their 
advantage  to  gather  more  numerous  fighting  forces  under  their  banner,  even 
if  by  this  means  they  hasten  the  historical  process  [the  day  when  anti-Social- 
ist laws  will  be  passed],  and  indeed  precisely  because  of  this. 

"La  Salle  used  to  say  to  his  followers  in  confidential  talks :  '  When  I  speak 
of  universal  suffrage  you  must  always  understand  that  I  mean  revolution." 
And  the  Party  has  always  conceived  of  universal  suffrage  as  a  means  of 
revolutionary  recruiting"  (Die  Neue  Zeit,  December  16,  1911). 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  TRANSITION  TO  SOCIALISM 

THE  Socialist  policy  requires  so  complete  a  reversal  of  the 
policy  of  collectivist  capitalism,  that  no  government  has  taken 
any  steps  whatever  in  that  direction.  No  governments  and 
no  political  parties,  except  the  Socialists,  have  any  such  steps 
under  discussion,  and  finally,  no  governments  or  capitalist 
parties  are  sufficiently  alarmed  or  confused  by  the  menace 
of  Socialism  to  be  hurried  or  driven  into  a  policy  which  would 
carry  them  a  stage  nearer  to  the  very  thing  they  are  most 
anxious  to  avoid. 

If  we  are  moving  towards  Socialism  it  is  due  to  entirely 
different  causes :  to  the  numerical  increase,  and  the  improved 
education  and  organization  of  the  non-capitalist  classes,  to 
their  training  in  the  Socialist  parties  and  labor  unions  for  the 
definite  purpose  of  turning  the  capitalists  (as  such)  out  of 
industry  and  government,  to  the  experience  they  have  gained 
in  political  and  economic  struggles  against  overwhelmingly 
superior  forces,  to  the  fact  that  the  enemy,  though  he  can 
prevent  them  at  present  from  gaining  even  a  partial  control 
over  industry  or  government,  or  from  seizing  any  strategic 
point  of  the  first  importance,  is  utterly  unable  to  crush  them, 
notwithstanding  his  greater  and  greater  efforts  to  do  so,  and 
cannot  prevent  them  from  gaining  on  him  constantly  in  num- 
bers and  superiority  of  organization. 

If  we  are  advancing  towards  Socialism,  it  is  not  because  the 
non-capitalist  classes,  when  compared  with  the  capitalists,  are 
gradually  gaining  a  greater  share  of  wealth  or  more  power 
in  society.  It  is  because  they  are  gradually  gaining  that 
capacity  for  organized  political  and  economic  action  which, 
though  useless  except  for  defensive  purposes  to-day,  will 
enable  them  to  take  possession  of  industry  and  government 
when  their  organization  has  become  stronger  than  that  of  the 
capitalists. 

The  overwhelming  majority  of  Socialists  and  labor  unionists 
are  occupied  either  with  purely  defensive  measures  or  with 

426 


THE   TRANSITION  TO  SOCIALISM  427 

preparations  for  aggressive  action  in  the  future.  This  does 
not  mean  that  no  economic  or  political  reforms  of  benefit 
or  importance  can  be  expected  until  the  Socialists  have  con- 
quered capitalism  or  forced  it  to  recognize  their  power;  I 
have  shown  that,  on  the  contrary,  a  colossal  program  of  such 
reforms  is  either  impending  or  in  actual  process  of  execution. 
It  means  only  that  for  every  advance  allotted  to  labor,  a 
greater  advance  will  be  gained  by  the  capitalist  class  which 
is  promoting  these  reforms,  that  their  most  important  effect 
is  to  increase  the  relative  power  of  the  capitalists. 

The  first  governmental  step  towards  Socialism  will  have 
been  taken  when  the  Socialist  organizations  are  able  to  say : 
During  this  administration  the  position  of  the  non-capitalist 
classes  has  improved  faster  than  that  of  the  capitalists.  But  even 
such  a  governmental  step  towards  Socialism  does  not  mean 
that  Socialism  is  being  installed.  It  may  be  followed  by  a 
step  in  the  opposite  direction.  No  advance  can  be  permanently 
held  until  the  organizations  of  non-capitalists  have  become  su- 
perior to  or  at  least  as  powerful  as  those  of  the  capitalists.  An 
actual  step  in  Socialism,  moreover,  as  distinct  from  such  an 
insecure  political  step  towards  Socialism,  depends  in  no  degree 
upon  the  action  of  non-Socialist  governments  (and  still  less 
on  local  Socialist  administrations  subject  to  higher  non- 
Socialist  control)  unless  such  governments  are  already  prac- 
tically vanquished,  and  so  forced  to  obey  Socialist  orders. 
An  actual  installment  of  Socialism  awaits,  first,  a  certain  de- 
velopment of  Socialist  parties  and  labor  unions,  and  second, 
on  these  organizations  securing  control  of  a  sovereign  and 
independent  government  (if  there  be  any  such),  or  of  a  group 
of  industries  that  dominates  it.  And  if  the  governments  of 
the  various  capitalistic  countries  are  as  interdependent  as 
they  seem,  a  number  of  them  will  have  to  be  captured  before 
the  possession  of  any  is  secure. 

The  essential  problem  before  the  Socialists  under  State  capi- 
talism, with  every  reform  now  under  serious  discussion  already 
in  force,  will  be  fundamentally  the  same  as  it  is  under  the  private 
capitalism  of  to-day.  The  capitalists  will  be  even  more 
powerful  than  they  are,  the  relative  position  of  the  non- 
capitalists  in  government  and  industry  still  more  inferior 
than  it  now  is.  However,  with  better  health,  more  means, 
greater  leisure,  superior  education,  with  a  better  organized 
and  more  easily  comprehended  social  system,  with  the  enemy 
more  united  and  more  clearly  defined,  Socialists  believe  that 


428  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

the  conditions  for  the  successful  solution  of  this  problem  will 
be  far  more  favorable. 

The  evolution  of  industry  and  government  under  capitalism 
sets  the  problems  and  furnishes  the  conditions  necessary  for 
the  solution,  but  the  solution,  if  it  comes  at  all,  must  come 
from  the  Socialists  themselves.  I  have  shown  what  the 
Socialists  are  doing  to-day  to  gain  supreme  control  over 
governments.  What  do  they  expect  to  do  when  they  have 
obtained  that  power?  I  have  given  little  attention  to  the 
steps  they  will  probably  take  at  that  time  because  the  ques- 
tion belongs  to  the  future,  and  has  not  yet  been  practically 
confronted.  It  is  impossible  to  tell  how  any  body  of  men 
will  answer  any  question  until  it  is  before  them  and  they 
know  their  answer  must  be  at  once  translated  into  acts.  Yet 
a  few  concrete  statements  as  to  what  Socialists  expect  and 
intend  for  the  future  —  especially  in  those  matters  where 
there  is  practical  unanimity  among  them,  may  be  justified, 
and  may  help  to  define  their  present  aims.  There  are  certain 
matters  where  Socialists  have  as  yet  had  no  opportunity  to 
show  their  position  in  acts,  and  yet  where  their  present  ac- 
tivities, supported  by  their  statements,  indicate  what  their 
course  will  be. 

First,  how  do  Socialists  expect  to  proceed  during  the  tran- 
sitional period,  when  they  have  won  supreme  power,  but 
have  not  yet  had  time  to  put  any  of  their  more  far-reaching 
principles  into  execution?  The  first  of  these  transitional 
problems  is :  What  shall  be  done  with  those  particular  forms 
of  private  property  or  privilege  which  stand  in  the  way  of  an 
economic  democracy?  How  far  shall  existing  vested  rights 
be  compensated? 

"And  as  for  taking  such  property  from  the  owners,"  asks  Mr. 
H.  G.  Wells,  "why  shouldn't  we  ?  The  world  has  not  only  in  the  past 
taken  slaves  from  their  owners,  with  no  compensation  or  with  meager 
compensation ;  but  in  the  history  of  mankind,  dark  as  it  is,  there  are 
innumerable  cases  of  slave  owners  resigning  their  inhuman  rights. 
.  .  .  There  are,  no  doubt,  a  number  of  dull,  base,  rich  people  who 
hate  and  dread  Socialism  for  purely  selfish  reasons ;  but  it  is  quite 
possible  to  be  a  property  owner  and  yet  be  anxious  to  see  Socialism 
come  into  its  own.  .  .  .  Though  I  deny  the  right  to  compensation, 
I  do  not  deny  its  probable  advisability.  So  far  as  the  question  of 
method  goes  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  we  may  partially  compensate 
the  property  owners  and  make  all  sorts  of  mitigating  arrangements 
to  avoid  cruelty  to  them  in  our  attempt  to  end  the  wider  cruelties 
of  to-day."  (1) 


429 

Socialists  are,  of  course,  quite  determined  that  either  the 
vested  interests  of  all  persons  dependent  on  small  unearned 
incomes  and  unable  otherwise  to  earn  their  living  shall  be 
protected,  or  that  they  shall  be  equally  well  provided  for  by 
other  means.  No  practical  Socialist  has  ever  proposed, 
during  this  transitional  period,  to  interfere  in  any  way  either 
with  savings  bank  accounts  or  with  life  insurance  policies  on 
a  reasonable  scale,  or  with  widows  and  orphans  who  are 
using  incomes  from  very  small  pieces  of  property  for  iden- 
tical purposes. 

As  to  the  compensation  of  the  wealthier  classes,  this  be- 
comes entirely  a  secondary  question,  a  matter  of  pure  ex- 
pediency. The  great  British  scientist  and  Socialist,  Alfred 
Russell  Wallace,  and  the  moderate  Socialist,  Professor  Anton 
Menger  of  Vienna,  propose  almost  identical  plans  of  com- 
promise with  the  wealthy  classes, — compromises  which  would 
perhaps  result  in  a  saving  to  a  Socialist  government  and 
might  therefore  be  advisable,  aside  from  any  sentimental 
question  of  protecting  or  abolishing  vested  "rights."  Pro- 
fessor Wallace,  objects  to  "continuing  any  payments  of  inter- 
ests beyond  the  lives  of  the  present  receivers  and  their  direct 
heirs  [now  living],  who  may  have  been  brought  up  to  expect 
such  inheritance."  For  if  we  were  to  compensate  any  others, 
Wallace  points  out  that  we  would  be  "actually  robbing  the 
present  generation  to  the  enrichment  and  supposed  advan- 
tage of  certain  unborn  individuals,  who  in  most  instances,  as 
we  now  know,  are  much  more  likely  to  be  injured  than 
benefited."  (2)  Professor  Menger  proposes  that,  in  ex- 
change for  property  taken  by  the  government  from  owners 
of  large  fortunes,  there  should  be  allotted  to  them,  and  their 
descendants  now  living,  a  modest  annuity  "  sufficient  to  satisfy 
their  legitimate  needs,"  as  being  more  reasonable  than 
Wallace's  plan  of  such  an  income  as  they  were  "brought  up 
to  expect."  (3)  But  in  the  long  run  the  difference  between 
the  two  methods  would  be  immaterial  —  and  the  one  chosen 
would  doubtless  depend  on  the  social  or  anti-social  attitude 
assumed  by  the  wealthy.  In  either  case  there  would  be  no 
unearned  incomes  in  any  generation  not  yet  born.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  perfectly  possible  that  a  Socialist  Party  which 
had  seized  the  reins  of  political  power  might,  through  motives 
of  caution  and  self-protection,  use  greater  severity  against 
those  of  the  capitalists  whom  they  thought  had  played  an 
unfair  part  in  the  welfare  against  the  installation  of  the  new 


430  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

government.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted,  for  instance,  that 
those  capitalists  who  tried  to  embroil  us  in  foreign  wars  in 
order  to  prevent  the  establishment  of  social  democracy  would 
probably  be  exiled  and  their  property  confiscated.  Cer- 
tainly these  measures  would  be  employed  against  all  such 
persons  as  had  counseled  or  participated  in  the  suspension 
of  civil  government  or  other  violent  measures. 

But  where  will  the  money  come  from  even  for  the  payment 
of  such  limited  compensation  as  the  Socialists  decide  upon? 
Assuming  that  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  the  railways  and  other 
large  businesses  were  paid  for  at  the  cost  of  reproduction,  or, 
let  us  say,  at  50  per  cent  their  present  market  value,  a  vast 
amount  would  still  be  required.  The  Socialist  answer  to 
this  question  is  very  brightly  given  by  America's  most 
popular  and  influential  Socialist  organ,  the  Appeal  to  Rea- 
son. It  reminds  us  that  the  Socialists,  once  having  the 
reins  of  political  power,  will  then  be  the  possessors  of  all  the 
credit  of  the  government. 

"How  much  money,"  asks  the  Appeal, "  did  Morgan  need  in  order 
to  buy  up  all  the  independent  steel  companies  for  the  steel  trust  ?  " 
And  it  answers:  "Not  a  penny.  Rather  than  needing  money,  he 
issued  stock  in  the  new  concern  in  payment  for  the  old  independent 
mills,  and  after  all  was  done  proceeded  to  almost  double  his  stock  ! 
In  other  words,  instead  of  needing  money,  he  acquired  a  vast  sum  in 
the  transaction.  One  who  is  familiar  with  the  way  the  railroads  have 
been  built  and  the  vast  fortunes  erected  understands  that  there  was 
almost  no  investment.  It  all  came  through  a  series  of  tricks.  Those 
tricks,  as  honest  in  the  reversal  as  when  the  capitalist  played  them, 
can  be  reversed.  Hardly  a  corporation  but  has  forfeited  its  charter. 
With  the  charter  cancelled  stocks  would  tumble  and  the  water 
would  speedily  go.  Socialists  are  not  fools  that  they  should  merely 
fall  into  the  hands  of  men  who  think  that  they  can  unload  on  them 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  saddle  a  perpetual  debt  on  the  people.  If 
the  steel  trust,  after  organizing  and  buying  up  smaller  concerns, 
could  still  issue  vast  series  of  stocks  and  bonds,  why  could  not  the 
Socialists  issue  all  the  money  they  needed  to  accomplish  the  same 
things?  And  would  not  the  money  based  on  lands  and  mills  be 
as  good  security  as  the  money  we  now  have  based  on  nothing  under 
the  sun  but  inflated  railroad  and  trust  stocks  [securities]  ?  " 

Undoubtedly  some  such  method  will  be  followed  —  with 
those  essential  industries  that  will  not  already  have  become 
colleotive  property  under  capitalism. 

In  so  far  as  "State  Socialism"  or  collectivist  capitalism 
will  have  paved  the  way,  by  extensive  government  own- 


THE  TRANSITION  TO  SOCIALISM  431 

ership,  the  problem  of  confiscation  or  compensation  becomes 
much  simplified.  Kautsky  has  very  ably  summarized  the 
prevailing  Socialist  plan  for  dealing  with  it  at  this  point :  — 

"  As  soon  as  all  capitalist  wealth  had  taken  the  form  of  (govern- 
ment) bonds,  it  would  be  possible  to  raise  a  progressive  income, 
property  and  inheritance  tax,  to  a  height  which  until  then  was  im- 
possible. 

"  It  is  one  of  our  demands  at  the  present  tune  that  such  a  tax  shall 
be  substituted  for  all  others,  especially  for  the  indirect  tax. 

"  But  even  if  we  had  to-day  the  power  to  carry  through  such  a 
measure  with  the  support  of  the  other  parties,  which  is  plainly  im- 
possible, because  no  bourgeois  party  would  go  so  far,  we  would  at 
once  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  great  difficulties. 

"  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  the  higher  the  tax  the  greater  the 
efforts  at  tax  dodging. 

"  But  when  a  condition  exists  where  any  concealment  of  income 
and  property  is  impossible,  even  then  we  would  not  be  in  a  position 
to  force  the  income  and  property  tax  as  high  as  we  wish,  because 
the  capitalists,  if  the  tax  on  their  income  or  property  pressed  them 
too  closely,  would  simply  leave  the  State. 

"  Above  a  certain  measure  such  taxes  cannot  rise  to-day  even  if 
we  had  the  political  power. 

"  The  situation  is  completely  changed,  however,  when  capitalist  prop- 
erty takes  the  form  of  public  debts. 

"  The  property  to-day  that  is  so  hard  to  find  then  lies  in  broad 
day-light. 

"  It  would  then  only  be  necessary  to  declare  that  all  bonds  must  be 
public,  and  it  would  be  known  exactly  what  was  the  value  of  every 
property  and  every  capitalist  income. 

"  The  tax  would  then  be  raised  as  high  as  desired  without  the  possi- 
bility of  tax  frauds. 

"  It  would  then  also  be  impossible  to  escape  taxation  by  emigra- 
tion, for  the  tax  could  simply  be  taken  from  the  interest  before  it  was 
paid  out.  [A  similar  tax  exists  in  France  to-day.] 

"  //  necessary  it  might  be  put  so  high  as  to  be  equivalent,  or  nearly  so, 
to  a  confiscation  of  the  great  properties. 

11  It  might  be  well  to  ask  what  is  the  advantage  of  this  round-about 
way  of  confiscation  over  that  of  taking  the  direct  road  ? 

"The  difference  between  the  two  methods  is  not  so  trifling  as  at 
first  appears.  „ 

"  Direct  confiscation  of  all  capitalists  would  strike  all,  the  s 
and  the  great,  those  utterly  useless  to  labor,  in  the  same  manner 

"  It  is  difficult,  often  impossible,  in  this  method  to  separate  the 
large  possession  from  the  small,  when  these  are  united  in  the  form  ol 
money  capital  in  the  same  undertaking. 

"  Direct  confiscation  would  complete  this  quickly,  often  at  < 
stroke,  while  confiscation  through  taxation  permits  the  disappearance 


432  SOCIALISM  AS  IT   IS 

of  capitalists'  property  through  a  long-drawn-out  process,  proceeding  in 
the  exact  degree  in  which  the  new  order  is  established  and  its  benevolent 
influence  made  perceptible. 

"  Confiscation  in  this  way  loses  its  harshness  and  becomes  more 
acceptable  and  less  painful. 

"  The  more  peaceable  the  conquest  of  political  power  by  the  pro- 
letariat, and  the  more  firmly  organized  and  enlightened  it  is,  the 
more  we  can  expect  that  the  primitive  forms  of  confiscation  will  be 
softened."  (My  italics.)  (4) 

jNor  are  any  of  the  more  influential  Socialists  anxious  to 
make  a  clean  sweep  of  private  enterprise  in  industry.  It  is 
only  the  more  important  and  fundamental  industries,  those 
which  underlie  all  the  processes  of  manufacturing,  or  furnish 
the  sheer  necessities  of  the  people,  that  must  necessarily  be 
directly  controlled  by  a  Socialist  society.  "It  may  be 
granted,"  says  Kautsky,  "that  small  establishments  will 
have  a  definite  position  in  the  future  in  many  branches  of 
industry  that  produce  directly  for  human  consumption, 
for  machines  manufacture  essentially  only  products  in  bulk, 
while  many  purchasers  desire  that  their  personal  taste  shall 
be  considered.  It  is  easily  possible  that  under  a  proletarian 
regime  the  number  of  small  businesses  may  increase  as  the 
well-being  of  the  masses  increases."  Of  such  industries 
Kautsky  says  that  they  can  produce  for  private  customers 
or  even  for  the  open  market.  As  to-day,  he  insists,  so  also 
in  the  future,  it  will  be  open  to  the  working  people  to  employ 
themselves  either  in  public  or  private  industry. 

"A  seamstress,  for  example,"  he  says,  "can  occupy  herself  for 
a  time  in  a  national  factory,  and  at  another  time  make  dresses  for 
private  customers  at  home,  then  again  she  can  sew  for  another 
customer  in  her  own  house,  and  finally  she  may,  with  a  few  com- 
rades, unite  in  a  cooperative  for  the  manufacture  of  clothing  for 


"The  most  manifold  forms  of  property  in  the  means  of  production 

—  national,  municipal,  cooperatives  of  consumption  and  production 
and  private  industry  can  exist  beside  each  other  in  a  Socialist  society 

—  the  most  diverse  forms  of  industrial  organization,  bureaucratic, 
trades  union,  cooperative  and  individual ;   the  most  diverse  forms 
of  remunerative  labor,  fixed  wages,  time  wages,  piece  wages,  profit 
sharing  in  the  economies  in  raw  material,  machinery,  etc.,  profit 
sharing  in  the  results  of  intensive  labor ;  the  most  diverse  forms  of 
distribution  of  products,  like  contract  by  purchase  from  the  ware- 
houses of  the  State,  from  municipalities,  from  cooperatives  of  pro- 
duction, from  producers  themselves,  etc.,  etc.     The  same  manifold 


THE   TRANSITION  TO  SOCIALISM  433 

character  of  economic  mechanism  that  exists  to-day  is  possible  in  a 
Socialistic  society.  Only  the  hunting  and  the  hunted,  the  struggling 
and  the  resisting,  the  annihilating  and  being  annihilated  of  the 
present  competitive  struggle  are  excluded,  and  therewith  the  con- 
trast between  exploiter  and  exploited."  (Italics  mine.)  (5) 

Equally  important,  or  more  important,  than  private  co- 
operative industries  in  the  Socialist  State,  it  is  expected,  will 
be  the  increase  of  private  organizations  of  other  kinds,  especially 
in  the  fields  of  publications,  education,  etc.,  by  what  Kautsky 
calls  free  associations,  which  will  serve  art  and  science  and 
public  life  and  advance  production  in  these  spheres  in  the  most 
diverse  ways,  or  undertake  it  directly,  as  the  associations 
which  to-day  bring  out  plays,  publish  newspapers,  purchase 
artistic  works,  publish  writings,  fit  out  scientific  expeditions. 
He  expects  such  private  organizations  to  play  an  even  more  im- 
portant role  than  the  government,  for  "it  is  their  destiny  to 
enter  into  the  place  now  occupied  by  capital  and  individual 
production  and  to  organize  and  to  lead  mankind  as  a  social 
being,"  (6)  (Italics  mine.) 

"The  utmost  restriction  of  private  property  under  Socialism," 
Mrs.  Oilman  says,  "leaves  us  still  every  article  of  personal  use  and 
pleasure.  One  may  still  'own'  land  by  paying  the  government  for 
it  as  now ;  with  such  taxation,  however,  as  would  make  it  very  ex- 
pensive to  own  too  much  !  One  may  own  one's  house  and  all  that 
is  in  it :  one's  clothes  and  tools  and  decorations ;  one's  horses,  car- 
riages and  automobiles;  one's  flying  machines — presently.  All 
'personal  property'  remains  in  our  personal  hands. 

"But  no  man  or  group  of  men  could  own  the  country's  coal  and 
decide  how  much  the  public  can  have,  and  what  we  must  pay  for  it. 
Private  holding  of  public  property  would  be  abolished."  (7) 

It  can  never  be  too  often  repeated  or  too  strongly  em- 
phasized that,  with  some  unfortunate  exceptions,  from  the 
time  of  Marx  to  the  present,  Socialists  have  opposed  not 
private  property,  but  capitalism.  It  is  the  domination  of 
society  by  the  capitalists,  i.e.  "capitalism"  or  the  capitalist 
system,  that  is  to  be  done  away  with. 

"The  distinguishing  feature  of  Communism,"  wrote  Marx,  using 
this  word  instead  of  Socialism,  "is  not  the  abolition  of  property 
generally,  but  the  abolition  of  capitalist  property.  But  modern 
capitalist  property  is  the  final  and  most  complete  expression  of  that 
system  of  producing  and  appropriating  products  that  is  based  on 
class  antagonism,  on  the  expropriation  of  the  many  by  the  few."  (8) 

2F 


434  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

In  seeking  the  better  organization  of  industry  and  leaving 
the  most  perfect  freedom  to  individuals  and  to  private  or- 
ganizations, what  the  Socialists  are  really  aiming  at  is  really 
to  restrict  the  government  to  a  government  of  things  rather  than 
to  a  government  of  men;  and  this  phrase  is  in  common  use 
among  them.  It  is  sought  not  to  increase  the  power  of  higher 
officials  over  government  employees  and  citizens,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  to  limit  their  powers  to  the  necessities  of  industry 
itself,  and  to  leave  the  most  perfect  and  complete  freedom 
to  the  individual  in  every  other  sphere,  as  well  as  in  industry, 
so  far  as  the  physical  conditions  themselves  allow.  There 
is  no  doubt,  for  instance,  that  whole  departments  of  restrictive 
legislation  directed  against  individual  liberty  would  at  once 
be  repealed  by  any  Socialist  government  (though  not  by  a 
government  of  so-called  "State  Socialists"). 

Perhaps  the  idea  is  best  expressed  by  the  Belgian  Socialist, 
Vandervelde :  — 

"The  capitalist  State  has  as  an  end  the  government  of  men;  it 
needs  centralized  power,  ministers  ready  to  employ  force,  function- 
aries blindly  obeying  the  least  sign.  Enlarge  its  domain  [i.e.  in- 
stitute '  State  Socialism.'  —  W.]  and  you  will  create  a  vast  barracks, 
you  will  institute  a  republic  of  scoundrels. 

"The  Socialist  State,  on  the  contrary,  will  have  for  its  end  an 
administration  of  things ;  it  will  need  a  decentralized  organization, 
practical  men  of  science,  industrial  forces  over  which  spontaneity 
and  initiative  will  be  required  above  every  other  quality."  (9) 

Surely  such  a  State  does  not  resemble  in  any  way  the  pa- 
ternalistic, bureaucratic  capitalism  or  "State  Socialism"  to- 
wards which  we  are  at  present  tending. 

"It  is  quite  as  possible,"  says  Mr.  Spargo,  "for  a  government  to 
exploit  the  workers  in  the  interests  of  a  privileged  class  as  it  is  for 
private  individuals,  or  quasi-private  corporations,  to  do  so.  Ger- 
many with  her  State-owned  railroads,  or  Austria-Hungary  and 
Russia  with  their  great  government  monopolies,  are  not  more  Social- 
istic, but  less  so  than  the  United  States,  where  these  tilings  are  owned 
by  individuals  or  corporations.  The  United  States  is  nearer  Socialism 
for  the  reason  that  its  political  institutions  have  developed  farther 
towards  pure  democracy  than  those  of  the  other  countries  named. 
.  .  .  The  real  motif  of  Socialism  is  not  merely  to  change  the  form 
of  industrial  organization  and  ownership,  but  to  eliminate  exploita- 
tion. .  .  .  Every  abuse  of  capitalism  calls  forth  a  fresh  installment 
of  legislation  restrictive  of  personal  liberty,  with  an  army  of  prying 
officials.  Legislators  keep  busy  making  laws,  judges  keep  busy  in- 


THE   TRANSITION  TO  SOCIALISM  435 

terpreting  and  enforcing  them,  and  a  swarm  of  petty  officials  are 
kept  busy  attending  to  this  intricate  machine  of  popular  government. 
In  sober  truth,  it  must  be  said  that  capitalism  has  created,  and  could 
not  exist  without,  the  very  bureaucracy  it  charges  Socialism  with 
attempting  to  foist  upon  the  nation."  (10) 

The  Socialists  are  as  far  from  proposing  anything  resem- 
bling a  system  of  mechanical  and  absolute  equality  as  they  are 
from  attacking  personal  or  industrial  liberty.  Ninety-nine 
and  one  half  per  cent  of  the  product  of  the  men  of  the  different 
social  classes,  says  Edward  Bellamy,  "is  due  in  every  case  to 
advantages  afforded  by  modern  civilization."  (11)  So  that 
if  one  man  is  twice  as  capable  as  another,  it  merely  raises  the 
proportion  of  the  product  due  to  his  personal  efforts  from  one 
half  of  one  per  cent  to  one  per  cent.  International  Socialism 
realizes  with  Bellamy  that  the  product  is  social  in  far  greater 
proportion  than  is  at  present  recognized,  but  it  does  not  deny 
that  there  are  cases  in  which  the  contribution  of  the  in- 
dividual is  more  important  even  than  everything  that  can 
be  attributed  to  his  social  advantages.  It  does  not  propose, 
therefore,  to  level  incomes.  It  is  true  that  this  communist 
principle  of  Bellamy's  has  a  wide  practical  application  both 
in  the  Socialist  scheme  of  things  and  in  present-day  society, 
as,  for  example,  in  free  schools  and  parks,  and  in  the  "State 
Socialist"  program.  But  the  extension  of  such  communism, 
the  distribution  of  services  to  the  general  public  without 
charge,  is  due  to-day,  not  to  any  acceptance  of  the  general 
principle,  but  to  the  fact  that  it  is  inconvenient  or  impossible 
to  attempt  to  distribute  the  cost  of  many  services  among  in- 
dividuals in  proportion  as  they  take  advantage  of  them. 

Kautsky  expresses  the  prevailing  Socialist  view  when  he 
says  that  the  principle  of  equality,  if  distinguished  from  mere 
artificial  leveling,  will  play  a  certain  role  in  a  Socialist  society. 
Without  any  definite  legislation  in  that  direction  the 
natural  economic  forces  of  such  a  society  will  tend  to  raise 
low  wages,  and  at  the  same  time,  by  the  increase  of  competi- 
tion for  higher  positions,  to  lower  somewhat  the  highest 
salaries.  For  if  Socialists  are  opposed  to  any  kind  of  artificial 
equality  or  leveling,  they  are  still  more  opposed  to  artificial 
inequality,  and  all  the  initial  advantages  that  arise  out  of 
the  possession  of  wealth  or  privileges  in  education  will  be 
done  away  with.  (12) 

On  the  supposition  that  Socialism  proposes  a  communistic 
leveling  of  income,  it  has  been  stated  very  often  by  Socialists 


436  SOCIALISM  AS  IT  IS 

that  it  would  be  necessary  to  abolish  wages,  but  there  is  no 
authority  for  this  either  from  Karl  Marx  or  from  any  of 
his  most  prominent  successors.  It  is  "wage  slavery"  or 
"the  wage  system"  that  is  to  be  abolished.  In  his  letter  on 
the  Gotha  Program  written  in  1875  Marx  said  that  there 
will  be  applied  to  wages  "the  principle  which  at  present 
governs  the  exchange  or  merchandise  to  that  degree  in  which 
identical  values  are  being  exchanged" ;  that  is  to  say,  supply 
and  demand,  when  it  operates  jreely,  will  give  us  a  standard 
also  in  a  Socialist  system.  There  will  be  no  starvation  wages, 
no  inflated  salaries,  no  "rent"  of  educational  advantages,  no 
unearned  income  and  no  monopoly  prices,  but  automatically 
adjustable  prices  and  wages  will  continue.  In  1896  Jules 
Guesde,  perhaps  the  best  known  disciple  of  Marx  in  France, 
expressed  nearly  the  same  idea  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  — 
"The  play  of  supply  and  demand,"  he  said,  "will  have 
sufficed  to  determine  without  any  arbitrary  or  violent  act, 
that  problem  of  distribution  which  had  seemed  insoluble  to 
you  before." 

Here  again  we  see  that  Socialism,  in  its  aversion  to  all 
artificial  systems  and  every  restriction  of  personal  liberty  is 
far  more  akin  to  the  individualism  of  Herbert  Spencer  than 
it  is  to  the  "  State  Socialism  "  of  Plato.  Socialists  expect  their 
children  to  be  far  wiser  and  more  fortunate  than  themselves, 
and  do  not  intend  to  attempt  to  decide  anything  for  them 
that  can  well  be  left  undecided.  They  intend  only  that  these 
children  shall  have  the  freedom  and  power  necessary  to  direct 
society  as  they  think  best.  The  few  principles  I  have  men- 
tioned are  perhaps  the  most  important  of  those  they  believe 
to  be  the  irreducible  minimum  needed  to  insure  this  result. 


NOTES 

INTRODUCTION 

(1)  John  Spargo,  "Karl  Marx,"  pp.  312,  331. 

(2)  John  Spargo,  op.  cit.,  p.  116. 

(3)  John  Spargo,  op.  cit.,  p.  73. 

g    (4)  The  Independent  (New  York),  commenting  on  the  Socialist 
victory  in  the  Milwaukee  municipal  elections  of  April,  1910. 

(5)  "  Recent  Socialist    Literature,"   by  John   Graham   Brooks 
Atlantic  Monthly,  1910.     Page  283. 

(6)  Collier's  Weekly,  July  30,  1910. 

(7)  H.  G.  Weils,  "Socialism  and  the  Family." 

(8)  H.  G.  Wells,  "The  New  Macchiaveili." 


PART  I 

CHAPTER  I 

(1)  The  Socialist  Review  (London),  April,  1909. 

(2)  The  New  Age  (London),  Nov.  4,  1909. 

(3)  Edward  Bernstein,  "Evolutionary  Socialism,"  p.  154. 

(4)  Winston  Churchill,  "Liberalism  and  the  Social  Problem," 
p.  345. 

(5)  H.  G.  Wells,  "New  Worlds  for  Old,"  p.  185. 

(6)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  80. 

(7)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  326,  327. 

(8)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  326. 

(9)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  396. 

(10)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  399. 

(11)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  336. 

(12)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  339. 

(13)  Lloyd  George,  "Better  Times,"  p.  163. 

(14)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  pp.  94-101. 

(15)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  p.  58. 

(16)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  p.  174. 

(17)  Lord  Rosebery's  Speech  at  Glasgow,  Sept.  10,  1909. 

(18)  Louis  F.  Post,  "  Social  Service,"  p.  341. 

(19)  The  Public  (Chicago),  Nov.  4,  1910. 

(20)  Henry  George,  "  Progress  and  Poverty,"  Book  IV,  p.  454. 

(21)  Professor  E.  A.  Ross,  "  Sin  and  Society,"  p.  151. 

(22)  Frederick  C.  Howe,  "  Privilege  and  Democracy  in  America," 
p.  277. 

437 


438  NOTES 


CHAPTER  II 

(1)  Lincoln  Steffens  in  Everybody's  Magazine,  beginning  Sep- 
tember, 1910. 

(2)  McClure's  Magazine,  1911. 

(3)  Governor  Woodrow  Wilson,  Speech  of  April  13,  1911. 

(4)  The  Outlook,  Nov.  18,  1911. 


CHAPTER  III 

(1)  William  Allen  White  in  the  American  Magazine,  January, 
1911. 

(2)  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  in  a  series  of  articles  published  in  the 
Outlook,  1910,  entitled  "The  Spirit  of  Democracy,"  now  in  book 
form. 

(3)  New  York  Journal,  Aug.  2,  1910. 

(4)  The  Outlook,  Sept.  10,  1910. 

(5)  The  Outlook,  May  24,  1911. 

(6)  Governor  Woodrow  Wilson,  Speech  in  Portland,  Oregon, 
May  18,  1911. 

(7)  Speech  in  Senate,  May  24,  1911. 

(8)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  pp.  33,  34. 

(9)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  p.  35. 


CHAPTER  IV 

(1)  "Fabianism  and  Empire,"  p.  62. 

(2)  Articles  by  Hyman  Strunsky  on  Welfare  Work,  The  Coming 
Nation,  1910. 

(3)  do,  do. 

(4)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  p.  93. 

(5)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  p.  81. 

(6)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  101. 

(7)  John  A.  Hqbson,  "The  Crisis  of  Liberalism,"  p.  3. 

(8)  Professor  Simon  Patten,  The  Annals  of  the  American  Acad- 
emy of  Political  and  Social  Science,  July,  1908. 

(9)  Speech  of  President  Hadley  before  the  Brooklyn  Institute 
of  Art  and  Sciences  (1909). 

(10)  New  York  Times,  Nov.  12,  1911. 

(11)  F.  H.  Streightoff,  "The  Standard  of  Living  among  the  In- 
dustrial People  of  America." 

(12)  Interview  with  Sir  Joseph  Ward,  New  York,  April  15,  1911. 

(13)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  325. 

(14)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  186. 

(15)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  240,  243. 

(16)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  250,  252. 

(17)  Lloyd  George,  op.  cit.,  pp.  68-69. 

(18)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  197. 

(19)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  197. 

(20)  The  Outlook,  June,  1911. 


NOTES  439 

(21)  Sidney  Webb,  the* Contemporary  Review  (1908)  and  "Basis 
and  Policy  of  Socialism,"  pp.  83,  84. 

(22)  The  Survey  (New  York),  1910,  pp.  81-82,  466,  731-732. 

(23)  H.  G.  Wells,  "First  and  Last  Things,"  p.  133. 

(24)  Edmond  Kelly,  "Twentieth-Century  Socialism,"  p.  314. 

(25)  Vorwaerts  (Milwaukee),  Feb.  3,  1898. 

4 

CHAPTER  V 

(1)  Victor  S.  Clark,  "The  Labour  Movement  in  Australasia." 

(2)  Professor  Le  Rossignol  and  Mr.  William  D.  Stewart,  "Com- 
pulsory Arbitration  in  New  Zealand,"  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of 
Economics.     Reprinted  in   their  book,   "State   Socialism  in  New 
Zealand." 

N.  B.  The  reader  who  is  interested  is  referred  to  the  whole  of 
both  these  volumes.  There  is  little  matter  in  either  that  does  not 
have  a  direct  bearing  on  our  subject,  and  they  have  been  utilized 
throughout  this  and  the  following  chapter. 

(3)  The  Coming  Nation,  Sept.  2,  1911. 

(4)  The  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Nov.  25,  1911. 

(5)  The  New  York  Times,  Nov.  25,  1911. 

CHAPTER  VI 

(1)  Special  Correspondence  of  New  York  Evening  Post,  dated 
Sidney,  Dec.  12,  1909. 

(2)  The  data  upon  which  this  chapter  is  based  is  also  obtained 
chiefly  from  Mr.  Victor  Clark's  "Labour  Movement  in  Australasia," 
and  "State  Socialism  in  New  Zealand,"  by  Stewart  and  Le  Rossignol. 

(3)  Victor  S.  Clark,  op.  cit. 

(4)  Stewart  and  Rossignol,  op.  cit. 

(5)  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1911. 

CHAPTER  VII 

(1)  Henry  George,  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  Vol.  II,  p.  515. 

(2)  John  Mitchell,  "Organized  Labor"  (Preface). 

(3)  John  A.  Hobson,  "The  Crisis  of  Liberalism,"  p.  100. 

(4)  For  this  and  later  quotations  from  Dr.  Eliot  in  this  chapter, 
see  his  little  book  entitled  "More  Money  for  the  Public  Schools. 

(5)  See  article  by  Dr.  Eliot  in  the  School  Review,  April,  1909. 

•*  *        .   ,      ,  .•  *  t      .1      _        TJ J J          Ifllfl 


\*S  /        kJ^S?     OH    VI\jl\J      WJ       .*-'  »•  1  1  /\1  rt 

(6)  "Knowledge  and  Education,"  the  Independent,  1910. 

(7)  Dexter,  " History  of  Education  in  the  United  States, 

CHAPTER  VIII 

(1)  Kautsky,  "The  Capitalist  Class"  (pamphlet). 

(2)  Marx's  letters  to  Sorge. 

(3)  Marx's  letters  to  Sorge. 


p.  173. 


440  NOTES 


PART   II 

CHAPTER  I 

(1)  The  Communist  Manifesto. 

(2)  The  Coming  Nation,  Sept.  9,  1911. 

(3)  Mr.  Gompers's  articles  in  the  Federationist  have  recently  ap- 
peared in  book  form. 

(4)  Carl  D.  Thompson,  ."The  Constructive  Program  of  Social- 
ism "  (pamphlet). 

(5)  Victor  Grayson  and  G.   R.   S.  Taylor,   ."The  Problem  of 
Parliament,"  p.  56. 

(6)  Editorial  in  the  Socialist  Review  (London),  May,  1910. 

(7)  Vorwaerts  (Milwaukee),  Jan.  3,  1893. 

(8)  Edmond  Kelly,  "Individualism  and  Collectivism,"  p.  398. 

CHAPTER   II 

(1)  Charles  Rappaport,  "Das  Ministerium  Briand,"  Die  Neue 
Zeit  (1910). 

(2)  See  Die  Neue  Zeit,  April,  1911,  p.  46.    Article  by  Vander- 
velde. 

(3)  The  Avanti,  April,  1911. 

(4)  The  Avanti,  Oct.  18,  1911. 

(5)  Critica  Sociale,  Nov.  1,  1911. 

(6)  Azione  Socialista,  Nov.  19,  1911. 

(7)  Avanti,  Dec.  2  and  3,  1911. 

CHAPTER  III 

(1)  Quoted  by  John  Graham  Brooks,  in  article  above  cited. 

(2)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Society,"  p.  60. 

(3)  Philip  Snowden,  "A  Socialist  Budget." 

(4)  Speech  in  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York,  Jan.  13,  1909. 

(5)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Society,"  p.  36. 

(6)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Government,"  Vol.  I,  p.  1. 

(7)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Society,"  p.  114. 

(8)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Society,"  p.  116. 

(9)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Government,"  Vol.  II, 
p.  130. 

(10)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  !' Socialism  and  Government,"  Vol.  I, 
p.  91. 

(11)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Government,"  Vol.  II, 
p.  4. 

(12)  Report  on  Fabian  Policy,  p.  13. 

(13)  The  Socialist  Review,  January,  1909,  p.  888. 

(14)  John  A.  Hobson,  "The  Crisis  of  Liberalism,"  p.  46. 

(15)  John  A.  Hobson,  "The  Crisis  of  Liberalism,"  p.  6. 

(16)  J.  R.  MacDonald,  "Socialism  and  Society,"  p.  133. 

(17)  Editorial  in  the  Socialist  Review  (London),  May,  1910. 

(18)  "Socialism  and  Government,"  Vol.  II,  p.  12. 


NOTES  441 

(19)  Andrew  Carnegie,  "Problems  of  To-day,"  pp.  123  ff. 

(20)  The  New  Age,  Nov.  4,  1909. 

(21)  "Fabian  Essays,"  p.  180. 

(22)  "Fabian  Essays,"  p.  187. 

(23)  "Fabian  Essays,"  p.  184. 

(24)  "Fabianism  and  the  Empire,"  p.  5. 

(25)  H.  G.  Wells,  "New  Worlds  for  Old,"  pp.  268-275. 

(26)  H.  G.  Wells,  "New  Worlds  for  Old,"  pp.  268-275. 

(27)  John  A.  Hobson,  "The  Crisis  of  Liberalism,"  pp.  116,  132. 

(28)  H.  G.  Wells,  "First  and  Last  Things,"  p.  242. 

(29)  The  New  Age  (London),  June  23,  1910. 

(30)  The  New  Age,  June  2,  1910. 

(31)  The  New  Age,  Dec.  23,  1909. 

(32)  The  New  Age,  Jan.  4,  1908. 

(33)  The  New  Age,  June  23,  1910. 

(34)  The  New  York  Call,  Oct.  22  and  29,  1911. 

(35)  The  New  Age,  March  26,  1910. 

(36)  The  New  York  Call,  Oct.  22,  1911. 


CHAPTER  IV 

(1)  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  October,  1911. 

(2)  Eugene  V.  Debs  in  the  International  Socialist  Review  (Chi- 
cago), Jan.  1,  1911. 

(3)  The  Social-Democratic  Herald  (Milwaukee),  Oct.  12,  1901. 

(4)  The  Social- Democratic  Herald,  Feb.  22,  1902. 

(5)  The  Social- Democratic  Herald,  May  28,  1904. 

(6)  Press  Despatch,  Aug.  26,  1911 

(7)  New  York  Journal,  April  22,  1910. 

(8)  Social-Democratic  Herald,  Vol.  XII,  No.  12. 

(9)  Social-Democratic  Herald,  Vol.  XII,  No.  12. 

(10)  Social-Democratic  Herald,  Vol.  XII,  March  24,  1906. 

(11)  The  Bridgeport  Socialist,  Oct.  29,  1911. 

(12)  The  New  York  Times,  Oct.  20,  1911. 

(13)  New  Yorker  Volkszeitung,  Dec.  9,  1911. 

(14)  New  York  Evening  Post,  Nov.  13,  1911. 

(15)  Collier's  Weekly,  Dec.  9,  1911. 

(16)  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Nov.  18,  1911. 

(17)  The  Outlook,  Aug.  26,  1911. 

(18)  The  New  York  Call,  Aug.  14,  1911. 

(19)  W.  R.  Shier  in  the  New  York  Call,  Aug.  16,  1911. 

(20)  Speech  at  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York,  Oct.  15,  1910. 

(21)  Hampton's  Magazine,  January,  1911. 

(22)  "Business,"  p.  290. 

(23)  ."Business,"  p.  114. 

CHAPTER  V 

(1)  W.  J.  Ghent,  "Socialism  and  Success,"  p.  47. 

(2)  Rappaport, '.'  Der  Kongress  von  Nimes,"  Die  Neue  Zeit,  1910, 
p.  821. 

(3)  Die  Neue  Zeit,  Oct.  27,  1911. 


442  NOTES 

(4)  "Parlamentarismus    und    Demokratie,"    edition    of    1911, 
p.  121. 

(5)  "Parlamentarismus    und    Demokratie,"    edition    of    1911, 
pp.  132-133. 

(6)  "Parlamentarismus    und    Demokratie,"    edition    of    1911, 
pp.  131-134. 

(7)  "Parlamentarismus    und    Demokratie,"    edition    of    1911, 
pp.  131-134. 

(8)  "Le  Syndicalisme  contre  L'Etat,"  pp.  223-235,  239-242. 

(9)  ."Parlamentarismus  und  Demokratie,"  p.  114. 


CHAPTER  VI 

(1)  Marx  and  Engels,  the  "  Communist  Manifesto." 

(2)  Anton  Menger,  "L'Etat  Socialiste"  (Paris,  1904),  p.  359. 

(3)  August  Bebel,  "Woman,  Past,  Present,  and  Future"   (San 
Francisco,  1897),  p.  128. 

(4)  Frederick     Engels,    "Anti-Duhring"     (3d     ed.,    Stuttgart, 
1894),  p.  92. 

(5)  Frederick    Engels,    "Socialism,    Utopian    and    Scientific," 
pp.  71-72. 

(6)  Karl  Kautsky's  "Erfurter  Programm,"  p.  129. 

(7)  John  Martin,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  September,  1908. 

(8)  Professor  John  Bates  Clark,  in  the   Congregationalist  and 
Christian  World  (Boston),  May  15,  1909. 

(9)  Otto  Bauer,    "Die   Nationalitaeten-frage  und   die   Sozial- 
demokratie,"  p.  487. 

(10)  Social- Democratic  Herald,  July  31,  1909. 

(11)  Social-Democratic  Herald,  Vol.  XII,  No.  5. 

(12)  Professor  Werner  Sombert,   "Socialism  and   the  Socialist 
Movement,"  p.  59. 

(13)  Jaures,  "Studies  in  Socialism." 

(14)  Kautsky,  "The  Road  to  Power,"  p.  101. 

(15)  Kautsky,  "The  Social  Revolution,"  p.  66. 

(16)  Kautsky,  "The  Social  Revolution,  pp.  66-67. 

(17)  Kautsky,  International  Socialist  Review,  1910. 

(18)  Die  Neue  Zeit,  Sept.  11,  1911. 


CHAPTER  VII 

(1)  Quoted  by  Chairman  Singer  at  the  Congress  of  1909. 

(2)  Quoted  by  Vorwaerts  (Berlin),  Sept.  24,  1909. 

(3)  The  proceedings  of  most  of  the  German  Party  Congresses 
may  be  obtained  through  the  Vorwaerts  (Berlin),  those  of  the  In- 
ternational and  American  Congresses  from  the  Secretary  of  the  So- 
cialist Party,  180  Washington  St.,  Chicago,  111. 

(4)  Kautsky,  "Der  Aufstand  in  Baden,"  in  the  Neue  Zeit,  1910, 
p.  624. 

(5)  The  Socialist  Review,  April,  1909. 

(6)  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1911. 

(7)  The  New  York  Call,  Jan.  6  and  8,  1912. 


NOTES  443 

(8)  The  New  York  Call,  Jan.  9,  1912. 

(9)  The  Socialist  Review  (London),  April,  1909. 

(10>  "Parlamentarismus   und    Demokratie,"   1911    edition,  pp 
114-116. 

(11)  "Parlamentarismus   und   Demokratie,"    1911   edition    DD 
14—15. 

PART  III 

CHAPTER  I 

(1)  The  American  Magazine,  October,  1911. 

(2)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  389. 

(3)  Die  Neue  Zeit,  Oct.  27,  1911. 

(4)  Speech  just  before  Congressional  Elections  of  1910. 

(5)  Speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Dec.  13,  1910. 

(6)  John  Spargo,  "Karl  Marx." 

(7)  Edward  Bernstein,  "Evolutionary  Socialism,"  p.  143. 

(8)  Karl  Kautsky,  "The  Social  Revolution,"  pp.  58-59. 

(9)  The  Outlook,  March  13,  1909. 

(10)  Karl  Kautsky  in  Vorwaerls  (Berlin),  Feb.  7,  1909. 

(11)  Quoted  by  Jaures,  "Studies  in  Socialism,"  p.  103. 

(12)  Karl  Kautsky,  "Erfurter  Programm,"  p.  258. 

(13)  Karl  Kautsky,  "The  Social  Revolution,"  pp.  48-49. 

(14)  The  International  Socialist  Review  (Chicago),  October,  1911. 

(15)  H.  G.  Wells,  "This  Misery  of  Boots,"  p.  34. 

(16)  Karl  Kautsky,  "The  Social  Revolution,"  p.  51. 

CHAPTER  II 

(1)  Karl     Kautsky,     "Parlamentarismus    und     Demokratie," 
edition  of  1911,  p.  127. 

(2)  Karl     Kautsky,     "Parlamentarismus    und     Demokratie," 
edition  of  1911,  pp.  126-128. 

(3)  Quotations  from   Kautsky  following  in   this  chapter  are 
taken  chiefly  from  his  "Agrarfrage." 

(4)  Emile  Vandervelde,  "Le  Socialisme  Agraire." 

(5)  Die  Neue  Zeit,  June  16,  1911. 

(6)  Proceedings  of  1910  Convention  of  the  Socialist  Party  of 
the  United  States. 

(7)  Die  Neue  Zeit,  June  16  and  30,  1911. 

(8)  A.  M.  Simons,  "  The  American  Farmer,"  pp.  160-162. 

(9)  The  1908  Convention  of  the  Socialist  Party  of  the  United 
States. 

(10)  Reprinted  at  frequent  intervals  by  the  Industrial  Democrat, 
Oklahoma  City. 

CHAPTER  III 

(1)  H.  G.  Wells,  "This  Misery  of  Boots,"  p.  34. 

(2)  Oscar  Wilde,  "The  Soul  of  Man  under  Socialism"   (bro- 
chure). 

(3)  Bernard  Shaw's  series  in  the  New  Age  (1908). 


444  NOTES 

(4)  Karl  Kautsky,  the  New  York  Call,  Nov.  14,  1909. 

(5)  Karl     Kautsky,     "  Parlamentarismus     und     Demokratie," 
pp.  124,  125,  138. 

(6)  Emile  Vandervelde,  "Le  Socialisme  Agraire,"  p.  236. 

CHAPTER  IV 

(1)  Eugene  V.  Debs,  "His  Life  and  Writings,"  p.  140. 

(2)  John  Mitchell,  "Organized  Labor,"  p.  208. 

(3)  George  H.  Shibley  in  the  American  Federationist,  June,  1910. 

(4)  Samuel  Gompers  in  the  American  Federationist,  1910. 

(5)  John  Mitchell,  "Organized  Labor"  (Preface). 

(6)  Eugene  V.  Debs,  op.  cit. 

(7)  Karl  Kautsky  in  Die  Neue  Zeit,  1909,  p.  679. 

(8)  Karl  Kautsky  in  Die  Neue  Zeit,  1909,  p.  680. 

(9)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  77,  336,  337. 

(10)  Die  Neue  Zeit,  June  11,  1911. 

(11)  The  Weekly  Bulletin  of  the  Garment  Trades  (New  York), 
1910. 

(12)  The  Mine  Workers'  Journal  (Indianapolis),  Aug.  26,  1909, 
and  April  21,  1910. 

CHAPTER  V 

(1)  The  New  York  Call,  Nov.  13,  1911. 

(2)  Edmond  Kelly,  "Twentieth-Century  Socialism,"  p.  152. 

(3)  The  Socialist  Review  (London),  September,  1910. 

(4)  Winston  Churchill,  op.  cit.,  p.  73. 

(5)  The  Socialist  Review  (London),  October,  1911. 

(6)  The  New  York  Call,  April  17,  1910. 

(7)  The  International  Socialist  Review,  June,  1911. 

(8)  The  Industrial  Syndicalist  (London),  July  and  September, 
1910. 

(9)  Le  Mouvement  Socialiste  (Paris),  1909,  article  entitled,  "Ple- 
chanoff  centre  les  Syndicalistes." 

(10)  "Le  Federation  des  Bourses  de  Travail  de  France,"  p.  67. 

(11)  Hubert  Lagardelle,  Le  Socialisme  Ouvrier  (Paris),  1911. 

(12)  Le   Mouvement    Socialiste,    1909,   article    entitled,    "Classe 
Sociale  et  Parti  Politique." 

(13)  Hubert  Lagardelle,  " Syndicalisme  et  Socialisme"  (Paris), 
p.  52. 

(14)  Hubert  Lagardelle,  "Syndicalisme  et  Socialisme"   (Paris), 
p.  50. 

(15)  Paul  Louis,  "Le  Syndicalisme  contre  1'Etat,"  pp.  4-7. 

(16)  Paul  Louis,  "Le  Syndicalisme  contre  1'Etat,"  p.  244. 

(17)  Karl     Kautsky,     ."  Parlamentarismus     und     Demokratie," 
pp.  136  and  137. 

CHAPTER  VI 

(1)  The   following   quotations   are   taken   from    the   brochure, 
"Der  Generalstreik,"  by  Henriette  Roland-Hoist    (Dresden,  1905). 

(2)  From  a  private  letter  published  editorially  in  the  New  York 
Sun. 


NOTES  445 

(3)  The  Outlook,  Nov.  25,  1911. 

(4)  Collier's  Weekly,  Sept.  2,  1911. 

(5)  The  Outlook,  Aug.  26,  1911. 

(6)  Die  Neue  Zeit,  Oct.  27,  1911. 

CHAPTER  VII 

(1)  Eugene  V.  Debs,  "Life  and  Writings,"  p.  456. 

(2)  Tolstoi's  Essay  entitled,   "Where  is  the  Way  Out?"  — 
October,  1900. 

(3)  Dr.  Karl  Liebknecht,  "Militarismus  und  Anti-Militarismus  " 
(brochure). 

(4)  Dr.  Karl  Liebknecht,  "Militarismus  und  Anti-Militarismus  " 
(brochure). 

(5)  George  R.   Kirkpatrick,  i' War  —  What  For?"  pp.  318- 
325. 

(6)  George  R.  Kirkpatrick,  "War  — What  For?"  (Preface). 

(7)  Bernard  Shaw,  "John  Bull's  Other  Island,"  pp.  xxxix-xliv. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

(1)  Rose  Luxemburg,  "Social-Reform  oder  Revolution." 

(2)  "La  Guerre  Sociale  "  (Paris),  April  20,  1910. 

(3)  Kautsky,  "The  Road  to  Power,"  Chapter  V. 

(4)  The  organ  of  the  Civic  Federation,  Nov.  15,  1909. 

(5)  "The  Road  to  Power,"  Chapter  VI. 

(6)  "The  Road  to  Power,"  p.  50. 

(7)  From  a  press  interview  with  Mr.  Henry  Watterson  in  1909 ; 
verified  by  a  private  letter  to  the  author. 

CHAPTER  IX 

(1)  H.  G.  Wells,  "  This  Misery  of  Boots,"  pp.  29-32. 

(2)  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,   "The  Railways  and  the  Nation," 
the  Arena,  January,  1907. 

(3)  Anton  Menger,  "  L'Etat  Socialiste  "  (Paris,  1904),  p.  348. 

(4)  Karl  Kautsky,  "  The  Social  Revolution,"  pp.  121-123. 

(5)  Karl  Kautsky,  "The  Social  Revolution,"  pp.  165-167. 

(6)  Karl  Kautsky,  "  The  Social  Revolution,"  p.  179. 

(7)  Mrs.  Charlotte  Perkins  Oilman  in  the  Forerunner  (1910). 

(8)  The  Communist  Manifesto. 

(9)  Emile  Vandervelde,  "  Collectivism,"  p.  126. 

(10)  John  Spargo,  "  Socialism." 

(11)  Edward  Bellamy,  "  Equality,"  p.  89. 

(12)  Karl  Kautsky,  "  Das  Erfurter  Programm,"  pp.  161-162. 


INDEX 

(FOR  SUBJECT  TITLES  OF  BOOKS,  PAMPHLETS,  AND  PERIODICALS 
SEE  LIST  OF  REFERENCES) 


Abbot,  Lyman,  33,  36, 97,  283,  284. 
AGRICULTURE,  7,  85,  96,  300-323. 
America,  see  United  States. 
American    Federation    of   Labor,    see 

United  States  Labor  Unions. 
Amsterdam,  see  International    Con- 
gresses. 
Andre,  381. 

Appeal  to  Reason,  The,  321,  430. 
Asquith,  Herbert,  153,  362. 
Augagneur,  132,  134,  398. 
Australasia,  the  Labour    Parties  of, 
85,  86,  92-94,  128,  146,  151,  168, 
174. 

Australasia,  "States  Socialism"  in: 
the  labor  policy,  53,  86 ; 
agrarian  and  land  policy,  85,  88,  89 ; 
government  ownership,  84,  85,  89- 

91. 

Austria,  the  Socialist  Party  of,  239, 
247,  252,  259,  347. 

Baden,  256-264. 
Baker,  Ray  Stannard,  32. 
Barnes,  George,  164,  165. 
Bauer,  Otto,  239,  247. 
Bebel,  August : 

on  reformism,  117,  123,  126,  130, 
131; 

on  revolutionary  politics,  232 ; 

on   the  revolutionary  trend,   251, 
252,  254,  255,  258-264 ; 

on  the  class  struggle,  281 ; 

on  the  agricultural  problem,  301; 

on  the  general  strike,  390,  391 ; 

on  revolution,  416,  418,  419. 
Belgium,  the  Socialist  Party  of,  139, 


141,  146,  252. 
Bellamy,  Edward,  435. 
Belloc,  Hilaire,  160,  161,  163. 


Berger,  Victor ; 
and    the  "State    Socialist"  labor 

policy,  63 ; 

on  reformism,  126,  211 ; 
as  leader  of  Milwaukee    Socialists 

178,  189,  195,  202-207; 
on  revolutionary  politics,  240-242  ; 
on  the  agricultural  and  land  ques- 
tion, 317,  318; 
on  political  revolution,  418. 
Bernstein,  Edward,  1,  99,  179,  180, 

240,  285,  286,  331. 
Bismarck,  43,  403,  404. 
Bissolati,  140-144. 
Bland,  Hubert,  161. 
Bohn,  Frank,  373-375. 
Boston  Herald,  The,  379. 
Boudin,  Louis,  180. 
Bowling,  Peter,  69,  70. 
Brandeis,  Louis,  60. 
Briand,  Aristide,  126,  132-134,  137, 

388,  394-398,  421,  422. 
Bridgeport  Socialist,  The,  193. 
Brisbane,  Arthur,  33-35,  see  also  New 

York  Journal. 

Brooks,  John  Graham,  viii; 
Brousse,  Paul,  135. 
Bryan,   William   Jennings,   30,    180, 

341. 

Burns,  John,  251,  357. 
Butler,  Nicholas  Murray,  392. 

Call,  New  York,  The,  198,  272,  399. 
Canada,  compulsory   arbitration  in, 

78-80. 

Canada,  the  Socialist  Party  of,  288. 
Carnegie,  Andrew,  63,  97,  151,  152. 


CATHOLIC  CHURCH,  87,  258. 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  160. 
Churchill,  Winston: 
447 


448 


INDEX 


and  the  Social  reform  program,  2, 

4-7,  9,  11,  12; 
and  the  politics  of  state  capitalism, 

42; 
and    the    state     capitalist    labor 

policy,  50,  64,  55,  57-59 ; 
and  compulsory  arbitration,  82 ; 
and  the  Labor  Party,  151,  152; 
and  the  class  struggle,  280,  298 ; 
and  labor  unions,  348,   360,   361, 

363. 
Civic  Federation,  The,  343,  344,  419- 

421. 
Clark,  Professor  John  Bates,  124,  236, 

237 

Clark,  Victor  S.,  66,  69,  79,  80,  90. 
CLASS  STRUGGLE,  THE,  33-36,  135- 
136,  245-247,  276-287,  297-299, 
347 ;   see  also  REVOLUTION. 
Collier's  Weekly,  ix,  199,  397. 
Compere-Morel,  201,  309,  315. 

Davenport,  Daniel,  68. 
Debs,  Eugene  V.: 

on  "State  Socialism,"  83  ; 

on  reformism,  175-177,  191 ; 

on  labor  unions,  335,  343-345 ; 

on  syndicalism,  366,  372,  375 ; 

on  revolution,  401. 
DEMOCRATIC  REFORMS,  31-45,   148- 
150,  155,  184,  217-230,  378,  379. 
Denmark,  259,  260. 
De  Toqueville,  Alexander,  130. 
Devine,  Edward,  61. 
Dreher,  W.  C.,  94,  269. 
Duchez,  Louis,  332,  369. 

EDUCATION,  see  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS. 
Eliot,  Charles  W.,  51,  79,  80, 100-105. 
Elm,  von,  391. 
Engels,  Friedrich,  112-115,  231-233. 

Fabian  Society,  see  Great  Britain. 

Ferri,  Enrico,  132. 

Fischer,  Richard,  263. 

Fisher,  Irving,  53. 

Fisher,  Premier,  85. 

Flexner,  Abraham,  52. 

France,  labor  unions  in,  366,  377-384, 

388,  394-398,  412,  414. 
France,  the  Socialist  Party  of : 

reformism  in,   135-139,  200,  240, 
244,  247,  274 ; 


on  the  land  and  agricultural  ques- 
tion, 309,  315-318 ; 
on  labor  unions  (see  France,  labor 

unions) ; 
the  revolution,  390,  414,  417,  418, 

421,  422,  424. 
Frank,  257,  259,  262. 
Frankfurter  Zeitung,  256. 

Garment  Workers,  United,  190,  350. 
Gary,  Judge,  16,  29. 
Gaynor,  William  J.,  195,  283. 
George,  Henry,  13,  14,  97,  320,  323. 
Germany,  "labor  unions  "  in,  68,  336, 

346,  347,  352,  384,  385. 
Germany,  the  Socialist  Party  of : 
position  on  reformism  in,  125,  128, 

217-235,  245-247 ; 
its  revolutionary  trend,  248-270; 
position  on  class  struggle,  280,  284, 

285,  288-291,  327-331; 
the  agricultural  question  in,  300- 

304,  307,  309,  312,  317,  318; 
the   revolution   in,   389-391,   403, 

404,  407,  414,  419,  423,  424. 
Germany,  "State  Socialism"  in,  2,4, 
43,  51,  52,55-57,  94-96;  see  also 
Bismarck. 

Ghent,  W.  J.,  205,  210. 
Oilman,  Charlotte  Perkins,  433. 
Gompers,  Samuel,  121,  336-338,  341- 

343,  345-347,  349. 

GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP,  4,  ,14,  16, 
17,  24,  85,  90,  111,  112,  126,  146- 
147,  207-209,  233-234. 
Grayson,  Victor,  122. 
Great  Britain,  labor  unions : 
compulsory  arbitration,  68 ; 
attitude  to  class  struggle,  341,  348. 
the  new  unionism,   354,   355-366, 

371,  372. 

Great  Britain,  the  Labour  and  So- 
cialist parties  of  (see  also  Mac- 
Donald,    Shaw,    Wells,    Webb, 
Hardie,  etc.) : 
The  Labour  Party,  1,  44,  123,  146- 

151,164-168,173,174; 
The  Fabian  Society,  2,  47,  62,  149, 

152-157,  159-164,  410-412; 
The  Social-Democratic  Party,  123  ; 
The    Independent  Labour    Party, 
146, 147,  151-153,  164-167,  240 ; 
The  Socialist  Party,  167,  168. 


INDEX 


449 


Great  Britain,  "State  Socialism"  in: 
the  Social  reform  program,  1-12 ; 
the  politics  of  the  New  Capitalism, 

42-45 ; 

the  labor  policy,  47-51, 53-59,61,62; 
compulsory  arbitration,  80-83 ; 
the  school  question,  104 ; 
"State    Socialism"    and    the  So- 
cialists, 122,  123,  146,  147,  153. 
Guerard,  381. 

Guesde,  Jules,  131, 137,  250,  318, 424, 
436. 

Hadley,  President,  51. 

Hanford,  Benjamin,  211. 

Hard,  William,  60. 

Bardie,  James  Keir,  146, 147, 164, 165. 

Harlan,  Justice,  202. 

Hartshorn,  Vernon,  355. 

Haywood,  William,  366,  371-376. 

Hearst,  William  Randolph,  33,  215. 

Herron,  George  D.,  238,  335. 

HervS,  Gustave,  138,  295,  372,  375, 

382,  417,  418,  422. 
Hillquit,  Morris,  210,  213. 
Hobson,  John  A.,  50,  99, 150, 157, 158. 
Holmes,  George  K.,  97. 
Howe,  Frederick  C.,  15. 
Hoxie,  Professor  Robert  F.,  175. 
Hughes,  Jessie  Wallace,  41,  68,  176, 

339,  390. 
Hungary,  152,  163,  336,  345. 

Independent,  The,  viii,  124. 
INDUSTRIAL  UNIONISM,  354-386. 
International  Socialist  Congresses : 

Paris  (1900),  139,  248,  249; 

Amsterdam  (1904),  137-139,  248- 
251; 

Stuttgart  (1907),  406. 
International  Socialist  Review,  The,  372. 
Italy,  the  labor  unions  of,  376. 
Italy,  the  Socialist    Party  of,    140- 
145,  398. 

Jaures,  Jean : 

on  reformism,   132-139,   141,    144, 

146; 

on  revolutionary  politics,  242,  244  ; 
on  the  revolutionary  trend,   249- 

251; 

on  the  general  strike,  389,  390. 
Justice,  123,  167. 

2a 


Kautsky,  Karl : 

on  the  first  step  towards  Socialism, 
111,  112; 

on  reformism,  153 ; 

on  reform    by  menace  of   revolu- 
tion, 217-227 ; 

on  revolutionary  politics,  233-236, 
244-247 ; 

on  the  revolutionary  trend,  248, 
249,  253,  264-268,  273,  274; 

on  the  class  struggle,  290,  291,  296, 
297,  299 ; 

on  the  land  and  agricultural  ques- 
tion, 300-304,  307,  312,  317, 318; 

on  the  working  class,  327-330; 

on  labor  unions,  346 ; 

on  syndicalism,  384-385 ; 

on  political  revolution,  416,  419, 
423,  424 ; 

on    the    transition    to    Socialism, 

431-433,  435. 

Kelly,  Edmond,  63,  128,  357. 
Kirkpatrick,  George  R.,  408-410. 

LABOR     LEGISLATION,     46-96,    137, 

339 

LABOR  UNIONS,  66-84,  334-400. 
Labour  Party,  see  Great  Britain  and 

Australasia. 
Labriola,  Arturo,  376. 
Lafargue,  Paul,  232,  247,  318. 
La  Follette,  Robert   M.,  25,  26,  68, 

179,  180,  182,  187,  277,  341,  393. 
La  Follette' s  Weekly,  1,  23,  188. 
Lagardelle,  Herbert,  376-382,  417. 
LAND  QUESTION,  3-6,  87-89,  92,  93, 

96,  113,  234,  300-323. 
La  Salle,  Ferdinand,  248,  425. 
Ledebour,  254,  255. 
Legien,  Karl,  342,  347. 
Le  Rossignol  and  Stewart,  70-75,  89, 

91. 

Liebknecht,  Karl,  258,  403,  404,  408. 
Liebknecht,  Wilhelm,   cii,   117,   125, 

236,  248,  250,  288,  289,  327. 
Lincoln,  278. 
Lloyd  George,  David : 

and  the  social  reform  program,  2, 

7-11; 

and  the  politics  of  State  Capital- 
ism, 42-44 ; 
and    the    State    capitalist    labor 

policy,  48,  49,  56,  62 ; 


450 


INDEX 


and  compulsory  arbitration,  80 ; 

and  the  Labor  Party,  151 ; 

and  labor  unions,  360,  386. 
London,  Jack,  410. 
Louis,  Paul,  225,  382,  383. 
Lunn,  George  R.,  198. 
Luxemburg,  Rosa,  416. 

McCarthy,  Mayor,  190,  332. 
McClure's  Magazine,  24,  98. 
MacDonald,  J.  R. : 

on  the  reformist  policy,  1,  123,  273 ; 
as  spokesman  for  the  Labor  Party, 

146-152,  164-167 ; 
on  syndicalism,  360,  365,  386. 
Machinists,  349. 
Maxwell,  Superintendent,  105. 
Mann,  Tom,  357-359,  364,  365,  370- 

372. 

Martin,  John,  235. 
Marx,  Karl : 

Socialism  viewed  as  a  movement, 

vii,  viii ; 

on  "State  Socialism,"  111-115; 
on   Socialist   political   policy,  117, 

118,  130,  212,  213,  231,  260; 
on  agriculture,  303; 
on  revolution,  424; 
on    Socialist    labor    union    policy, 

352,  356 ; 

on  the  policy  of  a  Socialist  govern- 
ment, 433,  436 ; 
on  the  class  struggle,  279,  284-285; 

327,  332 ; 

Maurenbrecher,  246,  263,  264. 
Mehring,  Franz,  425. 
Menger,  Anton,  196,  232,  429. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  129. 
Millerand,    122,    126,    132-134,    137, 

248,  249,  393. 
Milwaukee,   126,   176,    178-196;    see 

also  Berger  and  Thompson. 
Milwaukee  Journal,  The,  183, 184, 196. 
Miners,  Western  Federation  of,  366- 

368. 

Mine  Workers,  United,  349-351,  367. 
Mitchell,  John,  97,  336-338,  342-345, 

357. 

Modigliani,  142,  143. 
Moody,  John,  21. 
Morgan,  J.  P.,  18,  47. 
Morley,  Lord,  164. 
Moyer,  368. 


MUNICTPALIZATION,  see  "MUNICIPAL 
SOCIALISM  "  and  GOVERNMENT 
OWNERSHIP. 

"MUNICIPAL  SOCIALISM,"  161-163 
175,  176,  182-184,  188-201. 

Musatti,  144. 

NATIONALIZATION,  see  GOVERNMENT 
OWNERSHIP. 

New  Age,  The,  1,  159,  160,  163. 

New  Yorker  Volkszeitung,  189,  195, 
331. 

New  York  Evening  Journal,  The,  33- 
35,  183. 

New  York  Evening  Post,  The,  198. 

New  York  Times,  The,  195. 

New  York  World,  The,  183,  184. 

New  Zealand,  168 ;  see  also  Austral- 
asia. 

Niel,  381. 

Oklahoma,  319,  320. 
Outlook,  The,  202,  392,  397. 
Owen,  Senator,  202. 

Panama  Canal,  16,  17,  20. 

Pannekoek,  292,  293. 

Paris,  see  International  Congresses. 

Patten,  Simon,  50,  51. 

Pelloutier,  377. 

Perkins,  George  W.,  18,  47. 

Philadelphia    North    American,  The, 

347. 

Podrecca,  144. 
Post,  Louis  F.,  13,  14. 
PUBLIC  SCHOOLS,  99-105. 

Quelch,  167. 
Quessel,  264. 

Rappaport,  133,  201,  216. 
Reeves,  William  Pember,  70. 
REVOLUTION,  231-247,  387-425;  see 

also  CLASS  STRUGGLE. 
Rigola,  142. 

Rockefeller,  John  D.,  19,  63. 
Roland-Hoist,  Henriette,  389-391. 
Roosevelt,  Theodore : 

on  the  social  reform  program,  1  ; 

and  on  the  economics  of  the  New 
Capitalism,  16,  18,  29-31 ; 

on  the  politics  of  the  New  Capital- 
ism, 36,  40 ; 


INDEX 


451 


on    the    "State    Socialist"    labor 

policy,  59,  63 ; 
and  compulsory  arbitration,  79,  80, 

82,  83 ; 

on  the  class  struggle,  281-284,  287 ; 
on   commission  on   Country  Life, 

309,  320 ; 

on  labor  unions,  368,  373 ; 
on    government    employees,    392, 

396. 

Root,  Elihu,  18. 
Rosebery,  Lord,  10. 
Ross,  Edward  A.,  14,  36. 
Russell,  Charles  Edward : 

on  compulsory  arbitration,  76-78 ; 
on  the  Labour  Parties,  169-173  ; 
on  reformism,  177,  178; 
on  "State  Socialism,"  208-210. 
Russia,  390,  414. 

Saturday  Evening  Post,  The,  97,  200. 
Seidel,  Mayor,  192,  193,  196. 
Shaw,  George  Bernard : 

on  the  social  reform  program,  2 ; 

on    the    "State    Socialist"    labor 
policy,  47 ; 

on  Socialism  and  democracy,  154, 
155; 

on  social  classes,  325-327 ; 

on  militarism,  410-412. 
Shibley,  George,  341. 
Simons,  A.  M.,  119,  120,  310,  316- 

318,  322. 

Singer,  Paul,  255. 
Sladden,  Tom,  294,  332. 
Snowden,  Philip,  146,  152,  153,  164- 

166. 

Sombart,  Werner,  243. 
Spargo,  John,  213,  434. 
Steffens,  Lincoln,  19,  20. 
Stokes,  Mrs.  J.  G.  Phelps,  420. 
Stokes,  J.  G.  Phelps,  183,  184. 
Stuttgart,    see     International     Con- 
gresses. 

Survey,  The,  64. 
Sweet,  Ada  C.,  420,  421. 

Taft,  William  H.,  16,  68,  79,  81,  98, 

393. 
TAXATION,  8,   12,  96,   114;    see  also 

LAND     QUESTION,      MUNICIPAL 

SOCIALISM,    and     GOVERNMENT 

OWNERSHIP. 


Temps  (Paris),  132. 

Thompson,  Carl  D.,  122, 192, 193, 196. 

Thorne,  Will,  365. 

Tillet,  Ben.,  356,  359,  365. 

Tolstoi,  358,  401,  402. 

TRADE  UNIONS,  see  LABOR  UNIONS. 

Turati,  122,  140-145,  146. 

UNEARNED    INCREMENT,    see    LAND 

QUESTION. 

United  States,  labor  unions  in : 
on  compulsory  arbitration,  81 ; 
attitude  to  politics,  335-341 ; 
attitude  to  class  struggle,  341-347; 
attitude  to  Socialist  Party,  348-352 ; 
and    "industrial   unionism,"    355- 

358,  366-375. 

United  States,  the  Socialist  Party  of  : 
"State  Socialism"  in,  62,  83  ; 
reformism  in,  122,  123,  126,  175- 

209,  210-216,  238-242 ; 
on  social  classes,  288,  298,  331-335  ; 
on  agricultural  and  land  questions, 

304-306,  309-323 ; 
on  labor  unions,  see  United  States, 

labor  unions  in ; 
the  revolution  in,  399,  401,  405, 

408-410,  418-420. 

United  States,  "States  Socialism "  in : 
the  social  reform  program,  13-31 ; 
the  politics  of  the  New  Capitalism, 

16-31; 

The  Politics  of  the  New  Capital- 
ism, 32-42; 

the  labor  policy,  47, 48, 50-53, 59-65 ; 
compulsory  arbitration,  67-69,  80- 

84; 

equal  "  opportunity,"  97-99 ; 
the  school  question,  99-106 ; 
"State  Socialism  "  and  the  Socialist, 

206-209. 
Untermeyer,  Samuel,  29. 

Vaillant,  Edouard,  138,  139. 
Vandervelde,  Emile : 

on  reformism,  139,  141,  146; 

on  agriculture,  301,  303,  317; 

on  the  working  class,  331 ; 

on  the  policy  of  a  Socialist  govern- 
ment, 434. 

Viviani,  133,  134,  398. 
Voice  of  Labour  (Auckland,  New  Zea- 
land), 168. 


452 


INDEX 


Vorwaertt  (Berlin),  10. 

Walker,  John,  350. 
Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  429. 
Ward,  Sir  Joseph,  54. 
Watterson,  Henry,  425. 
Webb,  George  H.,  47. 
Webb,  Sidney : 

on  the  social  reform  program,  2,  3  ; 

on  the  "State  Socialist"  and  labor 
policy,  61 ; 

on   Socialism    and    individualism, 

153-155,  159,  164. 
Wells,  H.  G. : 

"Is  Socialism  a  movement  or  an 
idea?"  ix; 

on  the  social  reform  program,  3 ; 


on    the   "State    Socialist"    labor 

policy,  62 ; 

on  British  Socialism,  155-157,  159 ; 
on  social  classes,  296,  325 ; 
on  the  transition,  428. 
Western    Clarion,    The    (Vancouver), 

332. 

White,  William  Allen,  32. 
Wilde,  Oscar,  325. 
Wilson,  Stitt,  271. 
Wilson,  W.  B.,  67. 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  26-29,  31,  36,  40, 

68,  283. 

The    Worker    (Brisbane,    Australia), 
128. 

Yvetot,  414. 


"  I  "HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of 
•*•     Macmillan  publications  on  kindred  subjects. 


The  Elements  of  Socialism 


BY  JOHN   SPARGO 
AND  GEORGE   LOUIS   ARNER 

Cloth,  izmo,  $7.50  net;  by  mail,  $f.6j 

Experts  who  have  read  the  advance  sheets  declare  this  work  to  be  at 
once  the  most  comprehensive  and  sane  presentation  of  the  Socialist  case 
yet  made.  It  is  singularly  free  from  the  exaggerated  statement  and 
declamatory  style  which  characterize  the  writing  of  so  many  Socialists. 

Mr.  Spargo,  one  of  the  authors,  is  well  known  as  a  careful  and  reliable 
expositor  of  Marxian  Socialism,  upon  which  subject  he  has  written  more 
books  and  pamphlets  than  any  other  man  in  the  English-speaking 
world,  while  as  instructor  of  Economics  at  Princeton  University  and 
more  recently  at  Dartmouth  and  as  a  prominent  Socialist,  Dr.  George 
Louis  Arner  is  also  well  known. 

The  experience  Mr.  Spargo  has  had  in  presenting  the  subject  to 
widely  different  audiences,  taken  with  Dr.  Arner's  practical  knowledge 
as  a  teacher,  are  revealed  in  the  admirable  arrangement  of  The  Elements 
of  Socialism. 

Frankly  written  from  the  Socialist  point  of  view,  the  tone  of  the 
work,  however,  is  conservative  throughout. 

The  volume  is  divided  into  five  parts,  which  deal  respectively  with 
the  Socialist  Indictment,  with  the  Socialist  Theory,  Socialist  Ideal,  the 
Socialist  movement,  and  the  Socialist  Program.  There  is  also  a  supple- 
mentary chapter  in  which  the  objections  to  socialism  are  discussed. 
The  work  will  be  of  great  service,  not  only  to  the  general  reader,  but 
also  as  a  textbook  in  college  and  university  courses  of  economics.  In 
its  bold  expansion  of  the  collectivist  ideals  the  volume  is  perhaps  the 
most  readable  straightaway  account  of  Socialism  that  has  appeared. 


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Socialism 

BY  JOHN   SPARGO,  Author  of  "The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children" 
New  edition.     Cloth,  izmo,  $f.jo  net;  by  mail,  $1.62 

"  Anything  of  Mr.  Spargo's  is  well  worth  reading,  for  it  is  written 
with  conviction  and  with  a  sense  of  concrete  life  far  removed  from 
mere  doctrinairism.  Anybody  who  wants  to  know  exactly  what  the 
American  Marxian  of  the  saner  sort  is  aiming  at  will  find  it  here. 
It  is  a  book  that  every  thoughtful  person  will  want  to  read  and 
read  carefully."  —  World  To-day. 

The  Essentials  of  Socialism 

BY  IRA   B.   CROSS,   PH.D. 

Cloth,  izmo,  152  pp.,  $f.oo  net;  by  mail,  $1.08 

Beginning  with  a  brief  introduction  in  which  he  outlines  the 
history  and  general  characteristics  of  the  Socialistic  movement, 
Dr.  Cross  considers  in  turn  The  Socialist  Indictment  of  Capitalism, 
The  Definition  and  Differentiation  of  Socialism  from  other  Schemes 
for  Betterment,  The  Classification  of  the  Different  Kinds  of  Social- 
ists, The  Inevitability  of  Socialism,  The  Methods  of  Obtaining 
Collective  Ownership,  The  Outlines  of  a  Possible  Socialist  State, 
and  Socialism  and  Trade  Unionism.  The  work  is  characterized 
by  a  charming  conciseness,  and  the  reader  who  is  looking  for  a 
clear  exposition  of  a  much  discussed  and  most  misunderstood  sub- 
ject, but  who  has  not  the  time  for  lengthy  tomes,  will  find  in 
Dr.  Cross's  work  just  what  he  wants. 


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Socialism  in  Theory  and  Practice 

By  MORRIS    HILLQUIT 

Cloth,  izmo,  $1.50  net,-  by  mail,  $f.6j 

"The  'man  in  the  street'  will  find  this  little  volume  an  up-to- 
date  exposition  of  the  Socialism  that  is  alive  in  the  world  to-day." 
Review  of  Reviews. 

Socialism  and  the  Ethics  of  Jesus 

BY  HENRY    C.    VEDDER 

Cloth,  izmo,  $1.30  net;  by  mail,  $1.63 

This  work  gives  a  brief  history  of  Socialistic  principles  and 
parties  in  modern  times  and  examines  with  great  thoroughness  the 
foundations  on  which  these  principles  rest.  The  author  inquires 
in  what  respects  these  principles  correspond  to  the  ethics  of  Jesus, 
and  wherein  the  two  differ.  This  consideration  of  the  points  of 
similarity  and  of  difference  between  the  ethics  of  Jesus  and  the 
Socialism  of  to-day  is  not  the  work  of  the  champion  of  any  social 
theory  but  of  an  impartial  and  candid  student  of  history,  religion, 
economics,  and  social  institutions. 

Socialists  at  Work 

By  ROBERT    HUNTER,  Author  of  "  Poverty " 

Cloth,  ismo,  tf.jo  net;  by  mail,  $/.6/ 

11  It  is  a  vivid,  running  characterization  of  the  foremost  person- 
alities in  the  socialist  movement  throughout  the  world.  The  world 
sweep  of  the  movement  has  never  before  been  so  clearly  brought 
before  the  American  reading  public."  —  Review  of  Reviews. 


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A  History  of  Socialism 

BY  THOMAS    KIRKUP 
Third  edition,  revised  and  enlarged.     Cloth,  izmo,  $2.25  net;  by  mail,  $2.37 

"Socialism  grew  to  be  a  very  important  question  during  the 
nineteenth  century ;  in  all  probability  it  will  be  the  supreme  ques- 
tion of  the  twentieth."  —  Thomas  Kirkup. 

"None  have  surpassed  Mr.  Kirkup  in  philosophical  grasp  of  the 
essentials  of  socialism,  or  have  presented  the  doctrine  in  more 
intelligible  form." —  The  Nation, 

New  Worlds  for  Old 

By  H.   G.  WELLS 

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"  To  the  great  majority  of  readers  this  is  the  most  satisfactory 
exposition  of  the  nature  and  intentions  of  moderate  socialism  that 
can  be  had.  Mr.  Wells  is  always  clear,  sane,  and  reasonable." 
—  The  Watchman. 

"  This  is  a  statement,  very  lucid  and  direct,  of  the  aims,  ideals, 
and  objects  of  Socialism.  It  is  valuable  for  the  intelligent  simplicity 
of  its  explanations  and  its  complete  freedom  from  rancor."  — Every- 
body's Magazine. 

The  War  of  the  Classes 

BY  JACK    LONDON 

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In  his  characteristic,  energetic  English,  the  writer  makes  very 
clear  the  present  irreconcilable  struggle  between  workingmen  as  a 
class  and  capitalists  as  a  class ;  the  question  is :  What  will  be  the 
outcome  of  the  struggle  ?  He  writes  pungently  of  the  "  economic 
necessity  "  whose  by-product  is  the  tramp,  that  "  scapegoat  to  our 
industrial  sinning  " ;  and  of  "  scabs,"  both  laborers  and  capitalists. 
"  The  Question  of  the  Maximum  "  faces  the  dividing  of  the  ways 
when  capitalistic  production  shall  have  reached  its  full  development. 
The  whole  book  is  calculated  to  arouse  serious  thought  on  present 
conditions. 


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Revolution 

BY  JACK    LONDON 

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Jack  London,  as  is  well  known,  is  a  socialist.  Some  of  the  feel- 
ings that  actuate  him  he  has  expressed  in  this  volume  of  essays. 
Readers  of  his  novels  will  see  in  this  book  the  same  daring  origi- 
nality, the  same  contempt  for  convention,  which  mark  his  novels 
and  stories. 

The  Iron  Heel 

BY  JACK    LONDON 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $f.jo 

"  A  stupendous  work  of  imagination,  in  all  the  vigor  and  virility 
of  this  young  champion  of  the  proletariat  from  which  he  has  so 
marvelously  sprung.  "  —  Duluth  Herald. 

The  Record  of  an  Adventurous  Life 

The  Autobiography  of  a  Great  Socialist  Leader 
BY  HENRY    MAYERS   HYNDMAN 

Cloth,  8vo,  $1.75  net ;  by  mail,  $1.89 

Mr.  Hyndman  has  had  a  varied  career,  and  this  story  of  his  life 
as  he  himself  tells  it  in  his  crisp  and  direct  language  is  not  en- 
cumbered with  a  dull  page.  Among  the  many  prominent  people 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact  and  to  whom  he  devotes  chapters  in 
his  book  are  Mazzini,  Marx,  Clemenceau,  George  Meredith  and 
William  Morris.  The  Growth  of  Socialism  he  has  dealt  with  more 
seriously.  As  a  part  of  the  vast  evolution  towards  a  better  period 
Mr.  Hyndman  has  had  a  large  share  in  hastening  on  the  realization  - 
of  a  nobler  life  for  mankind. 


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"  It  is  a  good  book,  and  will  help  any  one  interested  in  the  study  of 
present  social  problems."  —  Christian  Standard. 


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A     000  676  686     9 


University  of  California  Library 
Los  Angeles 

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